them to introduce law for the extirpation of Catholique Religion in the three Kingdomes at any time before these Remonstrants openly entred into this actuall Rebellion and bloudy assacination though those Remonstrants draw it in amongst their provocations to take up Armes Neither indeed did those Remonstrants feare any violence or sharpe prosecution from their quiet Neighbours the Protestants in Ireland there having been very great and as now appeares very dangerous patience used towards the Remonstrants aswell by Governours as all Officers and Protestants who would have beene glad to live among them in peace if the Remonstrants could have endured their company Lastly whereas they seeme grieved That the Parliament of England encroached against law and unjustly upon the Priviledges of Parliament in Ireland in sending for and questioning too and in the English Parliament the members of that Parliament They do wel now to expresse sence of it amongst the rest of their pretexts for their wicked acts But when Protestant members of this Parliament against whom that pretended encroachment most extended were sent for they imploring the aid of the Parliament of Ireland to defend them and their priviledges were not holpen therin by the Commons house but were answered by a leading Member of the Cōmons house now a Remonstrant that the House should do well not to take notice thereof least any variance should arise betweene the two Parliaments so unwilling they were to assist the Protestants or maintaine that right which now they so stoutly challenge though a good while afterwards both Houses tooke occasion to write to their Committee in England to sollicite concerning that particular And so little feare had they then of any pernicious purposes in that Parliament against them though they now make mention of that Parliaments unwarrantable invasion since made on your Majesties Rights and Prerogatives as a pretence for their wicked and abominable actions long before that begun In the seventh Article Those Remonstrants doe justly acknowledge your Majesties grace and Princely patience in hearing their grievances 7. Article which would have wrought upon any loyall or dutifull heart to returne love and obedience to so gracious a Soveraigne and at least neighbour-like demeanour towards your Majesties faithfull Subjects the Brittish and Protestants which how they performed their then immediately ensuing acts doe demonstrate But in this Article also they continue their untrue and malicious calumniations against your Majestie in your Governours and Officers who did never give any of them just cause of offence It cannot appeare that the Lords Justices and Counsell did give any untrue Information against them or the Committees of that Parliament neither is it true that any such thing was done for that they know the Counsell of whom the Lords Justices then were gave all the furtherance they could to the going of that Committee Hoping that what your Majestie should be pleased to grant might redound to the common benefit of your people Neither did any Privie Counsellours goe into England of purpose to crosse or give impediment to your Majesties Justice and graces But it is true that the late Lord Dillon afterwards Earle of Roscomon and Sir Adam Loftus your Majesties vice-Vice-Treasurer were about that time sent for by your Majestie upon the motion of your Parliament of England as it seemed to testifie in the cause moved in that Parliament against the Earle of Strafford And if in their attendance there their advice or knowledge concerning any thing there propounded or handled by the Committee were required by your Majestie doubtlesse those Counsellours did faithfully discharge the duty of good servants to your Majestie and true wel-wishers to that Kingdome being both Natives thereof and members of that Parliament Neither did your Majesties Justices and Counsell transmit unto your Majestie or any of the State of England any misconstructions or misrepresentations of the proceedings and actions of that Parliament but rather it may justly be beleeved that those Remonstrants doe worke upon their owne evill imaginations in this as in the former Articles they have presumed to avouch severall knowne untruths Nay the Lords Justices were so farce from any such malevolence to that Parliament or any Members thereof as when they received your Majesties Commission dated the sourth of Ianuary 1640. authorizing them to continue prorogue or determine the Parliamnent as they thought fit They in confidence that the intent of all the Members of the Parliament was for the generall good of the Kingdome and your Majesties service did willingly continue it and gave all countenance and assistance to it which well appeares by a motion made by a noble Peere in the Lords House That the Lords Justices had alwayes chearfully received their requests and Messages and were ready to comply with them desiring it might be entred to the end it might remaine to posteritie It is also conceived that when your Majestie had given direction that all Letters from thence should be kept apart to the end the Committee might have recourse unto them if any such misrepresentations could have appeared to them they would have instanced the same in this Remonstrance and not have offered to your Majestie suppositions for certainties And touching the Parliament of Irelands power of Judicature in matters Capitall there was nothing written from thence concerning that matter untill your Majestie being advertized of the impeachment of the Lord Chancellour and others in the Lords House required the Lords Justices to search and certifie whether any presidents might be found there for such a proceeding Your Majestie then also graciously declaring that as your Majestie intended not to prejudice the Rights of the Lords House so your Majestie did expect that they should nto introduce any new president for that cause Thereupon the Lords Justices having searched and demanded of the two Houses of Parliament if any such presidents they could shew none were produced which the Lords Justices certified backe to your Majesties principall Secretarie as in duty they ought And it is beleeved that those Remonstrants would not now more earnestly presse for that power in Judicature then heretofore was done were it not by the exercise or terrour thereof if their partie could have prevailed to rid themselves of your Majesties English Judges and Officers whom they cannot endure to beare rule amongst them though they clearly saw the Kingdome prospered above any former times under their great labour and travell It is most untrue that your Majesties Protestant officers or subjects did envy the good union betweene the two Houses But the truth is they did labour to cherish and confirme it by their uttermost skill and industry And if your Majesties servants or your Protestant subjects did happen to oppose those Remonstrants in any their undutifull motions and projects either concerning Religion or your Majesties Protestant Clergie or concerning the derogation of your Majesties Prerogatives Rites and authories or malicious practise against your Majesties Officers Those Remonstrants did and now
demands in our former Petition and humble motions to your Lordships exprest for the Licence and recommendation of our Agents and Petition to his sacred Majesty as that the cause of our Religion of our selves and our Posterity whereof his Majesty is so abundantly earefull his Majesties honour and service so much concerned therein may not suffer through delay or want of true and full information which your supplicants humbly conceive cannot bee without particular persons as Agents from the severall parts of this Kingdome to that end chosen by those who have now suffered to solicite and wholly attend the same And they shall ever pray c. 19 Octobris XIX Octob 1643. THe answer which on the twelfth of this moneth we gave to a former petition concerning this matter exhibited at this board In the name of divers of His Majesties protestant subjects of Ireland doth sully answer the requests of this your petition to which we can now adde That such is our care of the petitioners as that on the same day we gave them that answer We signed letters directed to Mr. Secretary Nicholas and inclosed therein their petition to Us and we have by those letters earnestly entreated Mr. Secretary that with all convenient speed we may understand His Majesties gracious pleasure therein which we shall readily obey and if the Petitioners shall think fit to send any to attend His Majesty as we shall not hinder them or any other from making their humble applications to his Majesty in any their occasions so we hold it agreeable with our duties to forbeare our recommendation for the reasons expressed in our said answer of the twelfth of this month untill we first understand his Majesties good pleasure therein Jo. Borlaso He. Tichborne Ormonde Roscomon Ant. Midensis Cha. Lambert Geo. Shurley Fra. Willoughbyâ— Ja. Ware Tho. Rotheram Whereupon Sir Sichard Bolton Knight Lord Chauncellor of Ireland upon the delivery of the said Copy at the councell board said that the Copy of the petition prepared to be sent to his Majesty was not a true copy because it wanted the names who had subscribed the originall petition which nicity was soon taken away by the protestants delivery of a perfect list of the names of such as had subscribed the petition intended to be presented to His Majesty The next day a Protestation was framed against the Protestant Petitioners and their agents by some ill affected to so good a worke and countenanced by the Earle of Roscomon and Sir James Ware two members of that board amongst others to draw scandall and prejudice on the Protestants and their petition which Protestation followeth in haec verba The sense of divers of His Majesties Protestant subjects who have signed to the late Petition directed to His Majesty Suffering under the misconstruction of our Petition we hold it fit to declare that we exhibited not the same through want of assurance of His Majesties care of the Protestant Religion and of his subjects Nor yet to divert any supplies that may be drawne from honce against such as in His Kingdome of England have taken up Armes against him but meerely in right to Gods Cause and in our right humbly to informe His Majesty when the Irish agents repaire unto him if the said Agents shall endevour to surprise or prejudice us in either this is the Commission We give and if any person or persons imployed by Vs shall goe further or otherwise busie themselves to the disturbance of His Majesties service against such we doe and shall protest as being in our intentions no parties thereunto which as it may serve to vindicate our faith to His most sacred Maiesty so it may shew how causelesse the Jealousies are of this addresse to Him And some ill affected persons were imployed unto severall of the subscribers to the Protestant petition desiring them to subscribe the said Protestation which tooke so little effect that not one man who had formerly subscribed the said Petion to his Majesty would be drawne to signe the said Protestation one Officer of the Army excepted who immediately after came to the Councell-Board divers of the Protestant petitioners being there present and desired that the Lords Justices and Councell would permit him to withdraw his name from the said Petition intended to be presented to His Majesty which he had formerly subscribed yet seeing the designe of the petition and other discouragements given the Petitioners tooke no other effect but that the protestant petitioners constantly presisted in their zeale to their Religion honour of his Majesty the vindication of the innocent blood of their brethren shed by the barbarous rebells and the preservation of the remainder of the poore protestants there They that favoured the said petition desisted from any further proceedings therein About the begining of Ianuary a letter from His Majesty dated the 6 of November 1643 arrived at Dublin licensing the protestant Agents to repaire to His Majesty which followeth in haecverba CHARLES REX RIght trusty and well beloved Counsellors and right trusty and right welbeloved Cousens and Counsellors we greet you well We have seene your letters to secretary Nicholas of the 18 of October 1643. with the copy of a petition to you presented the sixth day of that moneth by our cousens the Earle of Kildare and Lord viscount Ardes and divers others in the names of more of our protestant subjects in that our Kingdome and what answer you then made thereupon with a reservation till our pleasure should be signified concerning their requests We have likewise seene your letter to our said Secretary of the 28 of the same moneth with the coppy of a petition to us and a list of the subscribers in the name of divers our protestant subjects aswell Commanders as others in that our Kingdome and a Copy of their petition to you in pursuance of their former with your answer thereupon In all which we finde you have very prudently and carefully done what befits your duties to Us The foure persons nominated by the petitioners We are pleased may repaire hither over and above the persons by us formerly appointed with fitting instructions concerning the grievances mentioned in the petition aforesaid and that you permit them accordingly to come over when or before the persons to be sent from our Roman Catholique subjects of that our Kingdome shall come And if hereafter our said Protestant Subjects shall desire to add more to them upon Declaration of their names who are desired to be added to you and your advertizement thereof to Us you shall receive further direction and so we bid you heartily farewell Given at our Court at Oxford the 6 day of November in the Ninteenth year of our Raigne 1643. To our right trusty and welbeloved Counsellors Sir John Borlase and Sir Henry Titchborne Knights Lords Iustices and to our right trusty and right welbeloved Cousens Counsellors and trusty and welbeloved Counsellors the Lords and others of our Privy Councell of Our
be adjudged and put in possession without any Office or Inquisition to be had 18. That your Majesties protestant Subjects may be restbred to the quiet possession of all their Castles Houses Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments and Leases and to the quiet possession of the rents thereof as they had the same before and at the time of the breaking forth of this rebellion and from whence without due processe and judgement of Law they have since then been put or kept cut and may be answered of and for all the meane profits of the same in the interim and for all the time untill they shall be so restored 19. That your Majesties said protestant subjects may also be restored to all their Moneys Plate Jewels Houshouldstuffe Goods and Chattels whatsoever which without due processe or judgement in Law have by the said Confederates been taken or detained from them since the contriving of the said rebellion which may be gained in kind or the full value thereof if the same may not be had in kind and the like restitution to be made for all such things which during the said time have been delivered any person or persons of the said Confederates in trust to be kept or preserved but are by colour thereof still withholden 20. That the establishment and maintenance of a competent Protestant Army and sufficient Protestant souldiers and forces for the time to come be speedily taken into your Majesties prudent just and gracious consideration and such a course laid down and continued according to the tules of good government that your Majesties rights and Laws the Protestant religion and peace of that Kingdome be no more endangered by the like rebellions in time to come 21. That whereas it appeareth in print that the said Confederates amongst other things ayme at the repeale of Poynings Law thereby to open an easie and ready way for the passing of acts of Parliament in Ireland without having them first well confidered of in England which may produce many dangerous consequences both to that Kingdome and to your Majesties other Dominions your Majesty would be pleased to recent and reject all propositions tending to introduce so great a diminution of your Royall and necessary power for the confirmation of your Royall estate and protection of your good protestant Subjects both there and elsewhere 22. That your Majesty out of your grace and favour to your Protestant subjects of Ireland would be pleased to consider effectually of assuring them that you will not give order for or allow of the transmitting into Ireland any act of generall Oblivion release or discharge of Actions or Suits whereby your Majesties said Protestant Subjects there may be barred or deprived of their legall remedies which by your Majesties Laws and Statutes of that Kingdome they may have against the said Confederates or any of them or any of their party for or in respect of any wrongs done unto them or any of their ancestors or predecessors in or concerning their lives liberties persons lands goods or estates since the contriving or breaking forth of the said rebellion 23. That some fit course may be considered of to prevent the filling or overlaying of the Commons house of Parliament in Ireland with popish Recusants being ill affected members and that provision be duely made that none shall vote or sit therein but such as shall first take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance 24. That the proofes and manifestations of the truth of the severall matters contained in the Petition of your Majesties Protestant subjects of Ireland lately presented to your Majesty may be duely examined discussed and in that respect the finall conclusion of things respited for a convenient time their Agents being ready to attend with their proofes in that behalfe as your Majesty shall appoint Which Remonstrance Answer and Propositions His Majesty received from the said Agents the 27 of Aprill 1644. and the same delivered to Master Secretary Nicholas and then the said Agents desired him to move his Majesty that nothing might be concluded with the Irish Agents untill the said protestant Agents were fully heard and that they might have a Copy of the Propositions of the Irish The next day after Master Secretary Nicholas told them that his Majesty had referred the protestants petition their answer to the rebells Remonstrance and their propositions to the Committee for Irish affaires The 29th of April the protestant Agents were told by one of the Committee for the Irish affaires at Oxford that such of the Committee who were at the reading of the Answer to the Rebells Remonstrance and the Propositions of the protestant Agent said That those Propositions were drawne by the close Committee of London and that they wondered that His Majesty would receive so mutinous a Petition The same day the Protestant Agents being informed by divers persons of quality that the rebells Agents were upon dispatch they waited on the Lord Cottington chiefe of the Committee and desired his Lordship to be a meanes that they might have a Copy of the Rebells Propositions to His Majesty his Lordship seemed a stranger to the businesse and said he knew not any Propositions the Rebells had made and said further that he conceived they meant the Irish Remonstance whereunto they answered that the same was long since printed and that they were not strangers thereunto To which his Lordship replyed that if any such Propositions were made it were fit the same should be made knowne unto them but that he knew of none such Notwithstanding the said Lord Cottington was present at the Committee appointed by His Majesty for Irish affaires the 19 of April when the said Propositions from the Rebells of Ireland were read and by his Lordship and the rest on inviolable secrecy delivered unto Sir William Stewart and Sir Gerard Lowther Sir Philip Percivall and Mr. Justice Donuelland who were sent for out of Ireland and appointed by His Majesty to advise with him upon the Treaty and who received command from their Lordships not to communicate the said Propositions to any body which Injunction of secrecy was a great prejudice to the Protestant cause that those persons being persons of ability and integrity should be restrained from a free communication of all occurrences concerning that affaire with the said Protestant Agents and both they and the Agents were thereby prevented of satisfying severall persons that on false grounds and misinformation of the Rebells and their party who tooke liberty to discourse of the reasonablenesse of the Rebells desires and of the motives inducing the same were deluded with an opinion of the moderatnesse of the Rebells propositions and other their proceedings The same day the Protestant Agents being much troubled with the said Lord Cottingtons answer repaired unto Sir William Stewart Sir Gerard Lowther Sir Philip Percivall and Justice Donuellan and unto Sir George Radcliffe and Sir William Sambach who were added to them for that affaire and acquainted them that they were attending
with instructions from His Majesties protestant subjects of Ireland and had exhibited a petition and propositions to his Majesty who had promised them a gracious hearing and that they heard that the Rebells Agents were somewhat neare a dispatch and therefore entreated them who as they understood were to be admitted to attend the Lords of the Committee for Irish affairs that afternoone that they would move their Lordship that the protestant Agents who had diver a things of great consequence to offer to their Lordships might be admitted to a full hearing before matters proceeded too farce His Majesty having promised them a gracious hearing and they having attempted many other meanes to obtaine the same and that their Lordships would admit the said protestants Agents to see a copy of what was moved by the rebells being also ready to deliver a Copy of the Protestants Agents propositions The next day Sir George Radcliff sent for the Protestant Agents and in the presence of Sir William Stewart and the rest of the Gentlemen aforenamed he told them that they had acquainted the Lords of the Committee with their desires and that their Lordships commanded them to returne this answer that their Lordships tooke it ill that the said Agents were so forward in prejudicating the Kings Justice and their Lordships and that they should be heard at large before any conclusion were and said further that themselves were thought too forward to present such a request but as to the Protestants Agents desire of having a coppy of the rebells propositions they received no answer The first of May the Protestant Agents were commanded to attend the said Committee for Irish affaires at the audit Chamber in Oxford which accordingly they did The Lords of the Committee then present being the Lord Cottington the Earle of Bristol the Earle of Portland the Lord George Dagby Sir Edward Nicholas Sir Iohn Culpepper and Sir Edward Hade At which time their Lordships caused to be read the Protestants Petition and their propositions presented to His Majesty and the Instructions from the Protestants of Ireland and the order of the Commons house of the Parliament of Ireland of the 17 of February 1643. Declaring the concurrence of that house to the said petition but the Collections made in answer of the Remonstrance of the Irish which would have disproved their untrue pretences was not read Then the E. of Bristol told the said Agents that both the King and themselves were sensible of the prejudicate opinion which the said Agents had of their Iustice by their pressures to be heard and by their beliefe of vulgar reports That the said Agents could not be more carefull of the Protestants and Protestant Religion then their Lordships were To which the said Agents answered that if they had erred in pressing to be heard it was but out of their zeale to the service and for the preservation of the remnant of the poore Protestants of Ireland who intrusted them and out of a desire that His Majesty and their Lordships might be rightly informed of the past sufferings and present deplorable condition of the Protestants there which the said Agents humbly desired might be no otherwise represented to his Majesty and that they might be admitted to the proofe of the particulars contained in the said Protestant Petition which they humbly conceived to be of greatest concernment to them in discharge of their trust whereupon the said Agents were bidden to withdraw and soone after were called in againe and commanded to subscribe the propositions which they had formerly presented to His Majesty and were that day read before their Lordships which they did and the same day they were appointe in the afternoone to attend the Lord Priimate the Lord Bishop of Downe Sir Geo. Radcliff and others and there Sir George Radcliff cold them that they were commanded by the Committee for Irish affaires to let them know how ill they tooke the height and unreasonablenesse of their said Propositions and to deliver them this ensuing message First that their Lordships did not think that the Propositions presented by the pretestant Agents to His Majesty and that morning read before their Lordships were the sence of the Protestants of Ireland Secondly That those Propositions were not agreeable to the Instructions given the said Agents by the protestants of Ireland Thirdly That as those Propositions were drawn they would lay a prejudice on His Majesty and His Ministers to posterity these remaining on record if a Treaty should go on and a peace follow which the Kings necessity did enforce and that the Lords of the Committee apprehended the said Agents did flatly oppose a peace with the Irish Fourthly That it would be impossible for the King to grant the Protestant Agents desires and grant a Peace to the Irish Fifthly That the Lords of the Committee desired the protestant Agents to propose a way to effect their desires either by force or treaty considering the condition of His Majesties affaires in England To which Message the Protestant Agents gave Answer to this effect TO the first that they humbly conceived that the Propositions which they had presented to his Majesty were the sense of the Protestants of Ireland To the second that the propositions were agreeable to the Instructions given to the said Agents by the protestants of Ireland and conduced to the well settlement of that Kingdome To the third that they had no thought to draw prejudice on His Majesty or their Lordships by putting in those propositions neither had they so soone put in propositions had not his Majesty by his Answer to the Protestant petition directed the same To the fourth the said Agents humbly conceived that they were imployed to make proofe of the effect of the protestants Petition to manifest the inhumane Cruelties of the Rebells and then to offer such things as they thought fit for the security of the protestants in their Religion lives liberties and fortunes That the said Protestants had no disaffection to peace so as punishment be inflicted according to law as in the propositions are expressed and that the said pretestants might be repaired for their great losses out of the estates of the rebells not formerly by any Acts of this present Parliament in England otherwise disposed of which the said Agents desired might be represented to his Majesty and the Lords of the Committee accordingly To the fifth that the said protestant Agents were strangers to his Majesties affaires in England and conceived that part more proper for the advice of his Councells then the said Agents and therefore desired to be excused from medling in the Treaty further then the manifesting of the truth of the protestant petition and proposing in the behalfe of the protestants according to the Instructions given them which the said Agents were ready to preforme whensoever they should be admitted thereunto And having read them before their Lordships c. Sir George Radcliff told the said Agents that while they continued so
not prevayling therein with your Majesty as they expected have by their Letters and instruments labored with many leading Members of the Parliament there to give stop and interruption thereunto and likewise transmitted unto your Majesty and some of the state of England sundry misconstructions and misrepresentations of the proceedings and actions of your Parliament of this your Kingdom and thereby endeavoured to possesse your Majesty of an evill opinion thereof and that the said Parliament had no power of Iudicature in Capitall causes which is an essentiall part of Parliament thereby ayming at the impunity of some of them and others who were then impeached of high Treason and at the destruction of this Parliament But the said Lords-Iustices and privy counsell observing that no art or practise of theirs could be powerfull to withdraw your Majesties grace and good intentions from this people and that the redresse granted of some principall grievances was to be passed as Acts in Parliament The said Lords Iustices and their adherents with the height of malice envying the good union long before setled and continued between the Members of the house of Commons and their good correspondency with the Lords left nothing unattempted which might raise discord and disunion in the said house and by some of themselves and some instruments of theirs in the said Commons house private meetings of great numbers of the said house were appointed of purpose to raise distinction of Nation and Religion by meanes whereof a faction was made there which tended much to the disquiet of the house and disturbance of your Majesties and the publicke service And after certaine knowledge that the said Committees were by the waterside in England with sundry important and beneficiall Bills and other graces to be passed as Acts in that Parliament of purpose to prevent the same the said faction by the practise of the said Lords-Iustices and some of the said privy Counsell and their adherents in tumultuous and disorderly manner on the seventh of August 1641. and on severall dayes before cryed for an adjournment of the house and being over-voted by the voyces of the more moderate part the said Lords-Iustices and their adherents told severall honorable Peeres that if they did not adjourne the Lords house on that day being Saturday that they would themselves prorogue or adjourne the Parliament on the next Monday following by meanes whereof and of great numbers of proxies of Noblemen not estated nor at any time resident in this Kingdom which is destructive to the liberty and freedome of Parliament here the Lords house was on the said seventh day of August adjourned and the house of Commons by occasion thereof and of the faction aforesaid adjourned soone after by which meanes those Bills and graces according your Majesties intention and the great expectation and the longing desires of your people could not then passe as Acts of Parliament Within a few dayes after this fatall and inforced adjournment the said Committees arrived at Dublin with their dispatch from your Majesty and presented the same to the said Lords-Iustices and Councell expressing a right sense of the said adjournment and besought their Lordships for the satisfaction of the people to require short heads of that part of the dispatch wherein your Majesty did appeare in the best manner unto your people might be suddainly conveyed unto all the parts of the Kingdom attested by the said Lords-Iustices to prevent dispayre or misunderstanding this was promised to be done and an instrument drawn and presented unto them for this purpose and yet as it seemes desiring rather to adde fuell to the fire of the subjects discontent than quench the same they did forbeare to give any notice thereof to the people 8 After this certain dangerous and pernicious petitions contrived by the advice and Counsell of the said Sir William Parsons Sir Adam Loftus Sir Iohn Clotworthy knights Arthur Hill Esquier and sundry others of the malignant party and signed by many thousands of the malignant party in the City of Dublin in the province of Vlster and in sundry other parts in this kingdom directed to the Commons house in England were at publick Assizes and other publick places ' made known and read to many persons of quality in this kingdom which petitions contayned matters destructive to the said Catholicks their Religion lives and estates and were the more to be feared by reason of the active power of the said Sir Iohn Clotworthy in the Commons house in England in opposition to your Majesty and his barbarous and inhumane expressions in that house against Catholick Religion and the professors thereof Soon after an order conceived in the Commons house of England that no man should bow unto the name of IESVS at the sacred sound whereof all knees should bend came to the knowledge of the said Catholicks and that the said malignant party did contrive and plot to extinguish their Religion and Nation hence it did arise that some of the said Catholicks begun to consider the deplorable and desperate condition they were in by a Statute Law here found among the records of this kingdom of the second yeare of the raigne of the late Queen Elizabeth but never executed in her time nor discovered till most of the Members of that Parliament were dead no Catholick of this kingdom could injoy his life estate or libertie if the said statute were executed whereunto no impediment remained but your Majesties prerogative and power which were indeavoured to be clipped or taken away as is before rehearsed then the plot of destruction by any Army out of Scotland and another of the malignant party in England must be executed the feares of those twofold destructions and their ardent desire to maintain that just prerogative which might encounter and remove it did necessitate some Catholicks in the North about the two and twentieth of October 1641. to take Armes in maintenance of their Religion your Maiesties rights and the preservation of life estate and liberty and immediately thereupon tooke a solemne Oath and sent severall Declarations to the Lords-Iustices and Counsell to that effect and humbly desired they might be heard in Parliament unto the determination whereof they were ready to submit themselves and their demands which Declarations being received were slighted by the said Lords-Iustices who with the swaying part of the said Counsell and by the advice of the said two impeached Iudges glad of any occasion to put off the Parliament which by the former adjournment was to meet soon after caused a Proclamation to be published on the three and twentieth of the said Moneth of October 1641. therein accusing all the Catholicks of Ireland of disloyalty and therby declaring that the Parliament was prorogued untill the six and twentieth of February following within a few dayes after the said three and twentieth day of October 1641. many Lords and other persons of rank and quality made their humble addresse to the Lords-Iustices and counsel made
it evidently appear unto them that the said prorogation was against Law and humbly besought the Parliament might sit according to the former adiournment which was then the only expedient to compose or remove the then growing discontents and troubles of the land And the said Lords-Iustices and their party of the Counsell then well knowing that the Members of both houses throughout the kingdom a few in and about Dublin only excepted would stay from the meeting of both houses by reason of the said prorogation by proclamation two dayes before the time gave way the Parliament might sit but so limited that no Act of grace or any thing else for the peoples quiet or satisfaction might be propounded or passed and thereupon a few of the Lords and Commons appeared in the Parliament house who in their entrance at the Castle-bridge and gate and within the yard to the Parliament-house door and recesse from thence were invironed with a great number of Armed men with their match lighted and Muskets presented even to the breasts of the members of both houses none being admitted to bring one servant to attend him or any weapon about him within the Castle-bridge yet how thin soever the houses were or how much over-awed they both did supplicate the Lords-Iustices and Counsell that they might continue for a time together and expect the coming of the rest of both houses to the end they might quiet the troubles in full Parliament and that some Acts of security granted by your Maiesty and transmitted under the great Seale of England might passe to settle the minds of your Maiesties subiects To these requests so much conducing to your Maiesties service and the settlement of your people a flat denyall was given and the said Lords-Iustices and their party of the Counsell by their working with their party in both houses of Parliament being then very thin as aforesaid propounded an order should be conceived in Parliament that the said discontented Gentlemen took Arms in rebellious manner which was resented much by the best affected of both houses but being awed as aforesaid and credibly informed of some particular persons amongst them stood in opposition thereunto that the said Musquetiers were directed to shoot them at their going out of the Parliament house through which terrour way was given to that order Notwithstanding all the before mentioned provocations pressures and indignities the far greater and more considerable party of the Catholicks and all the Cities and Corporations of Ireland and whole provinces stood quiet in their houses whereupon the Lords-Iustices and their adherents well knowing that many powerfull Members of the Parliament of England stood in opposition to your Majesty made their principall application and addressed their dispatches full fraught with calumnies and false suggestions against the Catholicks of this kingdom to them and propounded unto them to send severall great forces to Conquer the kingdom those of the malignant party here were by them armed the Catholicks were not only denyed Arms but were disarmed even in the City of Dublin which in all successions of ages past continued as loyall to the Crown of England as any City or place whatsoever all other ancient and usuall Cities and Corporate Townes of the kingdom by means whereof principally the kingdom was preserved in former times were denyed arms for their money to defend themselves and expresse order given by the said Lords-Iustices to disarme all Catholicks in some of the said Cities and Towns others disfurnished were inhibited to provide Arms for their defence and the said Lords-Justices and Counsell having received an order of both houses of Parliament in England to publish a proclamation of pardon unto all those who were then in rebellion as they tearmed it in this kingdom if they did submit by a day to be limited The said Sir William Parsons contrary to this order so wrought with his party of the Counsell that a proclamation was published of pardon only in two Counties and a very short day prefixed and therein all free-holders were excepted through which every man saw that the estates of Catholicks were first aimed at and their lives next The said Lords-Iustices and their party having advanced their design thus far and not finding the successe answerable to their desires commanded Sir Charles Coot Knight and Baronet deceased to march to the County of Wickloe where he burnt killed and destroyed all in his way And in a most cruell manner man woman and child persons that had no appearing wills to doe hurt nor power to execute it soon after some foot-companies did march in the night by direction of the said Lords-Iustices and their said party to the Town of Sawntry in Fingall three miles off Dublin a Country that neither then nor for the space of four or five hundred yeares before did feel what troubles were or war meant but it was too sweet and too neare and therefore fit to be forced to armes in that town innocent husband-men some of them being Catholicks and some Protestants taken for Catholicks were murthered in their Inne and their heads carried triumphant into Dublin next morning complaint being made of this no redresse was obtained therein whereupon some Gentlemen of quality and others the inhabitants of the Country seeing what was then acted and what passed in the said last march towards the County of Wickloe and justly fearing to be all murthered forsook their houses and were constrained to stand together in their own defence though ill provided of Arms or Ammunition Hereupon a proclamation was agreed upon at the Counsell board on the thirteenth of December 1641. and not published or printed till the fifteenth of December by which the said Gentlemen and George King by name were required to come in by or upon the eighteenth of the said Moneth a safety was therein promised them On the same day another proclamation was published summoning the Lords dwelling in the English-pale near Dublin to a Grand-Counsell on the seventeeth of the said Moneth but the lords-Lords-Justices and their party of the Counsell to take away all hope of Accommodation gave direction to the said Sir Charles Coote the said fifteenth day of the said Moneth of December to march to Clontarff being the house and Town of the said George King and two miles from Dublin to pillage burn kill and destroy all that there was to be found which direction was readily and particularly observed in manifest breach of publike faith by meanes whereof the meeting of the said Grand-Counsell was diverted the Lords not daring to come within the power of such notorious faith-breakers the consideration whereof and of other matters aforesaid made the Nobility and Gentry of the English-pale and other parts of the province of Leinster sensible of the present danger and put themselves in the best posture they could for their naturall defence and imployed Lieutenant Colonel Read to present their humble Remonstrance to your Sacred Majesty and to declare unto you the state
sorts as well of State as Civill and Marshall they make War and Peace at pleasure they punish with death and all other corporall punishments they pardon and protect at pleasure they publish Proclamations as well in paine of death as otherwise in their owne names they convoke generall Assemblies out of all Counties in nature of Parliaments they have Assembled and held Synods and Convocations of their Titulary Arch-Bishops and Bishops and other Popish pretended Clergy and therein made Canons and Constitutions for the government of the Church they have excommunicated many of your Majesties Subjects and thereby inforced them to joyne with them in their confederacy they have taken possession of the Churches and seized the whole meanes of the Protestant Clergy into their owne hands and exercise the whole Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction and function they have received and yet entertaine a Nuncio from the Pope and two Agents from France and Spaine as themselves give out they treat with forraigne States in matters of the Kingdome they annoy the seas and hinder traffique they coyne money make it currant and advance and Decree Coynes already currant they settle and alter Possessions and in summe by way of exclusion to all Your Majesties Prerogatives Rights and Authorities they published an Act in print that no temporall Government or Jurisdiction shall be assumed kept or exercised within that Kingdome or any Province or County thereof during the troubles other then what is approved or instituted by their generall Assembly or supreame Counsell and have in this and other acts shewed themselves in the highest degree to be Antimonarchicall and contemners of Your Majesties Royall Scepter and Soveraignty neither were they necessitated to take up Armes for the defence of their lives estates and liberties of their Country they being in no feare of their lives or estates by any violence or illegallity so much as offered or intended by Your Majesties Governours or Protestant Subjects neither can it be instanced than at any time since the Reformation of Religion either Your Majesties Governours or Protestant Subjects ever offered any open violence against the person or estate of any Papist quatenus a papist nor otherwise except in case of Rebellion wherein there was necessity to desend Your Majesties good people or represse the Rebells unjust insolence by way of just chastisement Your Majesties Governours and Officers there using all their skill and labour to preserve the happy peace of that Kingdome which they well knew Your Majesty esteemed the highest blessing of Almighty God upon earth and for just Liberties of Subjects it equally concernes Your Majesties Protestant Subjects with the Papists and each of them have so freely enjoyed them during the gracious Raigne of Your Sacred Majesty and Your most illustrious Father untill this present Rebellion as no Nation in Christendome hath exceeded them in that blessing as it will best appeare if comparison be made with former times when for many ages there was in Ireland absolute tyranny in the Chieftaines ruling in an Irish manner and direct slavery in the inferiours which it seemes these Remonstrants doe rather affect then the legall peaceable regiment of Your sacred Majesty and the wholsome Lawes of England and since that Rebellion began Your Majesties people of Ireland have by the confederates been wholly subjected to illegall Ordinances oppressions and Arbitrary powers and indeed to the will of a raging and sinisterly incensed multitude and therefore those Figg-leaves of their faigned excuses are ill put together pretending the murther robbery and destruction of Your Majesties Protestant Subjects should be for the preservation of the said confederate whereas in truth Religion might teach them to discerne that the innocent blood they have thus cruelly and wantonly spilt would cry to Heaven and to Your Sacred Majesty Gods Vicegerent within Your Dominions for a just revenge against them Touching the frustrating of these Remonstrants attempts to present complaints to Your Majesty since the Rebellion began there will appeare no truth in this suggestion when all things are duely examined nay it will appeare that the Lords Iustices and Counsell have not concealed or debarred them or any thing that came from them to their Lords hands but have furthered the same to Your Majesties view or knowledge so fast as they could As first about the sixt of November 1641. the Rebells of the County of Cavan sent up a presumptuous Proposition to the Lords Iustices and Counsell which their Lordships answered with all the moderation and satisfaction that could stand with their duty as may appeare by the same and forthwith certified the one and the other to the late Lord Lieutenant to whom Your Majesty had expresly commanded them to send all addresses for the affaires of Ireland after that when about the 23th of December 1641. certaine Lords of the Pale had declared by a former Letter that they would stand on their guard and after they had joyned with the Northerne Rebells in the siege of Drogheda the Lords Iustices received a Letter from seven Lords of the Pale wherein after some unjust Challenges made to the Lords Iustices and Counsell they signified they would not come to them though before they the Lords Iustices and Councell had sent them security for their persons and published the same by Proclamation and desired that the Lords Iustices and Councell would send them certaine Commissioners to conferre concerning the Common peace and other things This the Lords Iustices and Councell thought not good to discend unto considering their former great undutifullnesse And hereof they forthwith certified the late Lord Leiutenant also but the truth is that for severall moneths in the beginning of this Rebellion they little regarded any thing the Lords Iustices could say or doe while they hoped to carry all before them by surprize or open force And indeed untill your Majesties Armies by accesse of succours sent out of England had redeemed such of your protestant Subjects as with life only escaped from that overwhelming destruction by these confederates prepared against them and enabled your Majesties distressed subjects to make head against their bloudy cruelties and that they felt their owne weaknesse to maintaine their disloyalty against so potent a Monarch as your Majestie is Neither indeed had they any colour of complaint the cause of griefe being intirely on our side And at the beginning of this Rebellion they had lesse reason then ever having lately received so much grace And satisfaction in all their pretended greivances though they had not he duty and patience to forbeare force and humbly to reape the fruits thereof The second overture which any of them made unto the Lords Iustices and Councell was by a Letter written to the Earle of Castlehaven dated the 16th of March 1641. signed onely by the Lords Gormonstowne Netterville and Slane in the stile of united Lords wherein they desired to have a meeting in some convenient place and that in the meane time there might be a Cessation of
Armes This the Earle sent to the Lords Iustices the 23th of the same moneth which was long after the Irish Army was beaten from Drogheda and that your Majesties Army was fully Master of the field in all parts of the Pale And then the Lords Iustices and Councell thought not fit of themselves to harken unto it but forth with certified the same to the then Lord Lieutenant desiring your Maiesties directions therein And for their further proceeding on the 23th of March 1642. the Lord Montgarret sent to the Earle of Ormond then Lientenant Generall of your MaiesTies Army a paper of the grievances aswell concerning things done in England as Ireland and desired it might be shewed to the Lords Iustices and Councell that redresse might be given which lay not in their Lordships powers yet this also they sent to the then Lord Lieutenant to be shewed to your Maiestie About August one thousand six hundred forty and two the Remonstrants sent to the said Lieutenant Generall of your Maiesties Army a Petition directed to your Maiestie which his Lordship presented to the Lords Iustices who forthwith sent it away to your Maiesties principall Secretary and since then no other complaint hath beene heard of except that Remonstrance and except some particular motions hereafter mennoned By all which it fully appeares the Lords Iustices and Councell did no way frustrate any of their attempts to complaine to your Maiestie For the sense these Remonstrants seeme now to have of the late effusion of innocent bloud there T is well if they now beginne to be sensible of the effusion of the innocent bloud whereof indeed themselves only are guilty which will more plainely appeare by distinguishing the times which they causelesly confound Your Maiesties subiects being in full peace and trusting only to the protection of your Maiesties lawes these confederates and their bloudy instruments did in many parts of the Kingdome suddenly and treacherously assault and glut their long contealed malice in cruelly murthering by sundry kinde of tormenting deaths some hundred thousands of your Maiesties harmelesse Protestant subiects and dispoiling both them and all the rest of all their esTates and substance as is too manifest to the world nothing limiting their outragious aymes but professEd to all extirpation of all Brittish and Protestants All which time neither your Maiesties Governours nor your surprized subiects were able to make any considerable resistance And when afterwards your Maiesties forces out of England enabled your subiects to stand upon their defence and by your Maiesties Princely direction and authority to take due vengeance on their unparraleld wickednesse no man no not the confederates in their owne consciences can iustly charge your Maiesties Governours or protestant Subiects with bloud undeservedly shed in that necessitated way of their own defence and iust punishment of those former heynous acts But the confederates ought to bewayle the bloud of your Maiesties officers and servants fighting in your iust quarrell as an addition of waight to their former guilt Vid. Proclamation Octob. 3. 1641. Whereas on the other side aswell your Maiestie by your Princely Proclamation under your royall signature and privy Signer commanded them to lay downe Armes Vid. Proclamation 1 Novēa 1641. with intent doubtlesse to have mercy on them in a fit measure And your Maiesties Governours there partly by Proclamations promising in your Maiesties name mercy to all that should desist from force as hereafter is set downe And partly by imploying unto them a committee of Parliament there whom they scornefully reiected by tearing aswell the Committees Letters sent to them from Drogheda as the order of Parliament therewith sent And at another time by sending unto them certaine of their owne Clergy to treate and perswade with them whom they abused And partly by letters and faire messages moving them to cease and stay violence by appointing the Lord Moore and others to treate with them By appointing Sir Richard Barnwell and Patrick Barnwell to treate and perswade with them Did their utmost to induce them to returne to due obedience To come and submit their discontents to your Maties known Clemency and stop the issue of bloud which they so willfully had opened enraged And which gives further evidence of your Maties servants subjects peaceable inclination Your Majesties Iustices and Counsell did in the beginning of this Rebellion give severall Commissions to Lords and prime Gentrie of the Natives in the Pale and all the adjacent Counties authorising them to gather the Forces of the Countrey and to governe and command them for preservation of the Subjects in peace authorizing them in those Commissions to parley with Rebels protect and promise mercy to all that would returne to obedience so much confidence had the Lords Iustices in those old English and did desire to make them assured of their trust As the Lord Gormanston in Meath Lord Montgarret in Kilkenny Nicholas Barnwell in Dublin Walter Bagwell in Catherlagh Lord of Lowth in Lowth Sir Thomas Nugent in Westmeath Sir Robert Talbot in Wickloe Sir Iames Dillon in Longford and severall others as well in Munster as Conaught All which Commissions so issued even to so many of of the Remonstrants themselves were issued after the 23 of October and before the last of November 1641. In all which time or afterwards if they pleased they might have staid the spreading of the Rebellion if promise of mercy could have done it besides severall Commissions of Martiall Law to the Natives in each County But they contrary to all hope not only forbare to protect or reduce any but they soone after joyned with the Northerne and other Rebels to the confusion of the State and Government and destruction and banishment almost of all British and Protestants and as for those few Roman Catholicks who stood firme in loyaltie in those unseasonable times they have been embraced and used with that love and affection by your Majesties Governours and Protestant subjects which the Protestant subjects formerly shewed to them and as the Protestants have been As to their undutifull Challenge to your Majesties Princely and deeply merited expressions in your gracious Commission to your said Lieutenant Generall of your Army granted in compassion to these Remonstrants Your Majesties loyall subjects cannot observe their presumption without griefe of heart but doe in all humilitie leave the same to Your Majesties most discerning judgement Your Majesties Protestant subjects doe not beleeve nor ever could observe that any of Your Governours or Protestant subjects there have either directly or collaterally in adverse affection towards the Confederates advertised against or otherwise represented those Confederates to Your sacred Majestie then the truth urged and their bounden duty to Your Majestie and your service pressed them to doe To the first Article Artic. 1. It runneth upon generalls and is in substance generally untrue yet in further dutifull care to give Your Majestie satisfaction Instances herein are humbly offered to maintaine the
some officers in the Country and some Courts might bring upon some perticulars those officers or their servants being for the most part some of the new Remonstrants which officers of whatsoever condition or profession were punished so often as they could be discovered neither did any of those burthens whatsoever they were fall other waies on the Remonstrants then on the Protestant Subjects and whatsoever they were the happy and rich peace setled amongst them by your Majesty and your blessed father which they never before enioyed did more then abundantly recompence them if they could have endured peace and the iust lawes of England And as to their vaunts of the great gifts they say they have bestowed on your Majesty first they did but their dutyes in whatsoever they gave as a part of retribution for the great and inestimable benefits they received by your Majesties gracious government and by your great bounties neither was your Majesty made the richer by any of those guifts for they were all disbursed amongst themselves partly to the old army placed among them for their own safety and quiet if they could have beene content with that happinesse which army would have been sufficient to represse any perticular disorder or insolence if the Remonstrants had not by generall conspiracy suddenly and at once cast of all obedience to your Majesty and the Lawes and surprised your Majesties stores and forts and almost all the armes of the Brittish and Protestants Those guifts were also bestowed in the other necessary occasions of the Kingdom and in truth the new army which consisted for the most part of themselves received the greatest part of those guifts And whereas they affirme that they were the most forward in granting those contributions and subsidies over and above your Majesties Rents and Reveneus which is an expression savouring of some repining at your Majesties receipts in rents which is your Majesties legall due and which they well know comes not to your Majesties privat purse and that they paid Nine parts of tenne of those Subsidies it is most untrue that those Remonstrants were either most forward in granting them or paid such large quantities thereof for first as to the contribution towards the maintenance of the Army your Majesties Protestant Officers and Subjects were the first movers thereof and when they came to be agreed on and paid those Remonstrants were the mayne opposers thereof both in Ireland and in England as doubtlesse your Majesty may remember and is well knowne to many yet living and when they were paid it was with great luctation and clamour amongst them and yet they rested not till they drew from your Majesty under the title of graces matters of more losse to your Majesty then those contributions were worth and as to the Subsidies it is most true that they were first moved by your Majesties Protestant Officers and Subjects not without some difference in alacritie at least in those Remonstrants neither would they have been so granted as there is iust cause to conceive had not these Remonstrants seene the unanimous propention of your Majesties Protestant Subjects and that by a tryall in the House of Commons before that motion made they found that your Majesties Protestants subjects then exceeded them in number would carry it by voices And this may with the more confidence be affirmed in certaine knowledge and upon a second probate which is that when afterwards by occasion of the Lord Straffords troubles in England and of the new Armies lying at Knockefergus and in those parts many Protestant members were absent most of whom upon severall pretences they discharged them and brought in Papist members whereby the Remonstrants partie were growne farre the greater in the Commons House then partly by complaining in England and partly by orders made in the house the Subsidies formerly granted were drawne downe from 41000 l. certaine each Subsidie to little above 12200 l. as appeare by the Subsidy Roll last returned which is farr below the subsidy granted in the tenth yeare of King Iames when the Kingdome was but in growth And as to the proportion paid by the Protestant Subjects it well appeares by the Rolles extant that they paid above a third part of the whole besies the Clergy though neither the quality or quantity of the Lands of Inheritance holden by them in the Kingdom do amount to more then to the fift part nor is the truth thus vouched which desire to arrogate any thing to your Majesties Protestant Subjects in prejudice of the others whom they would rejoyce to see as forward as themselves in all subject duties the rather to merrit in some measure your Majesties princely favours But to give your Majesty and all others a true view as neare as they can of both parties in their actions seeing the Remonstrants presume to stand before them so farre in professions howsoever it is most notorious how the said Protestant Subjects stand in sufferings and here it is desired that the affections and duty of the Protestant Subjects in Ireland may be measured by their actions which have beene and alwaies will be such towards your Majesty your Crowne and posterity as if those Remonstrants would really performe the like your Majesties Revenews and the bounties of your people might wholly come to your Majesties purse without any men of warre to maintayne peace there and then should your Majesty enioy competent benefit of a fruitfull Kingdome which hitherto hath beene made unprofitable to your Majesty and highly chargeable and mischeivous to your Royall Predecessors And lastly as to the distribution of the summs of money given which these Remonstrants would insinuate to have beene to your Majesties diservice and to the profit of their adversaries whom they seeme to designe to be your Majesties Protestant servants and officers the vanity and inconsideratnesse of this imputation will easily appeare upon veiw of your Majesties Officers accompts there extant which will sufficiently cleare that point and manifest the falshood of that scandall To the sixth Article 6. Article It is to be answered that what pressing Importunity was offered to your Majesty by any whom they call the Malignant party in England touching the disbanding of the new Army is best knowne to your Majesty But it is not true that the Lords Justices and Counsell there went about to disband that Army till they received your Majesties warrant so to doe and soone after for doing it received your Majesties gracious approbation and indeed it was of absolute necessity to disband them they having spent all the victualls provided for them and there being no money in your Majesties treasure in Ireland to pay them or the old Army then in charge thereupon and farre in arraere neither was that Kingdome able in a peaceable way to maintaine such an Army as those Remonstrants themselves amongst others openly professed in this Parliament being therein moved by your Majesties direction only to give some helpe thereunto for a
time But it is now plainly seene that the secret reason why those Remonstrants so distasted and in Parliament laboured against the disbanding of that Army was because by their disbanding they saw themselves like to be disappointed of such a helpe and of those Armes with a more fall hand to execute their bloody designe upon your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects which it seemes was consented unto by many of these Remonstrants members of both houses in the May session of Parliament before as was declared by Hugh Mac Mahon upon his examination Those Remonstrants well knowing that the greatest part of that Army aswell the common souldier as many of the Commanders were ready to be imployed by them in that exploit as since more fully appeared And that this their confederacy seems to be begun at that time or before doth somewhat more appeare in that at the next Session in Iune and July when that Army was disbanded and that your Majesty for good reasons had commanded by your severall warrants that they should be sent over sea to serve other Princes in amity with your Majesty those Remonstrants tooke great paynes to frame reasons to stay them which by their meanes the Lords Justices were then pressed to transmit to your Majesty And that they were unwilling to supply those Princes whose aide they so undutifully soone afterwards sollicited against your Majesty and your Majesties true Subjects and servants not that they beleived the kingdome could not well spare those men being then loose and noe way setled but that they intended shortly to make an other use of them to the utter destruction of your Majesties good Subjects as lamentable experience now evinceth besides it was then made knowne to the Lords Justices and Councell That the Priests and Jesuits diswaded the Colonels Captains and Souldiers all they could from going over which was on the same grounds to open which secret a little further It must be also remembred that in that Session upon a pretence that some of the Lord Straffords servants had placed powder under the Parliament House with purpose to blow them all up which was a meere fiction They moved the house to send certain Committees of Lords to the Lords Justices wherein the lord Magwier a chief conspirator as himselfe confessed was a most busie man to require search for the powder which they curiously performed and veiwed every corner on purpose to see what Armes were brought in that being a place where Arms had been in former times kept though the Officers of the Ordnance assured them that noe powder had been laide there for some yeares before neither was there any at that time And when they had seene what there was they adventured and drew the other Lords of that Committee then and now good Subjects to renew their motion to the Lords Justices to be admitted to see the stores of powder and armes placed in other parts in and about the Castle to whom the Lords Justices then answered that those were the Kings precious Iewels not to be without speciall cause shewed and so refused them whereat they seemed discontented as being left in uncertainty in what state your Majesties stores stood which they desired much to know especially whether the powder Armes were all there where they lay that if they were not come in they might find them elsewhere or if there then by the intended surprize to be sure of them and to know where on the suddaine to find them As for that strange Chimera of bringing a 10000 Scots into that Kingdome to force the Catholiques thereof to change their Religion and that Ireland would never be well without a Rebellion to the end the Natives might be extirpated It is little marvile that those Remonstrants in whose braines exterpation of Brittish and Protestants did so much runne which they to their uttermost power soone after executed had their hearts full of Rebellion which they wickedly practised soone after could easily fancy such thoughts in other men as one colour of excuse amongst others for their own evill intents But that those persons named in this Article should declare or advise such an act to the disturbance of that blessed peace in setling whereof they have beene principall actouts and in that Kingdome where their whole subsistance is and where their children are matched to Natives knowing also as they doe that such an action cannot be without great meanes and authority to support it it is incredible neither can they conceive that it will gaine more credit with any intelligent man then the tale of wagers mentioned in this Article the true particular whereof is That at an Assizes at Wexford a little before the Rebellion certaine Papists and Protestants being at the Sheriffs table at dinner a Protestant and a Papist had some conference about Religion The Protestant at last wished the Papist to come to Church as most of them had done formerly whereto the Papist answered he would never go to Church the Protestant said I wil give you 5 l. you shal give me 50. l. for it if you come not to Church before this time Twelve-Moneth he well knowing that the Papist would not come to Church whereat the Papist seeming startled was very earnest to understand the secret of that wager which at last the Protestant discovered and so it proved a merriment to the whole table as is well knowne to the Remonstrants And these are some of the grounds whereon these Remonstrants pretend to found their bloody Massacre which soone after ensued to the destruction of your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects What the Parliament in England protested or intended concerning the Catholiques in Ireland The Protestants in Ireland were not much moved with the rumours thereof being strangers thereunto and presumed those Remonstrants were better setled in the assurance of your Majesties Protestant subjects love to them and your Majesties gracious favours and care shewed to their security It is true that some Prints have been seene here seeming to averr that Lawes made in England will bind in Ireland if Ireland named This is a power that may equally concerne your Majesties Protestant subjects as those confederates But it being a matter yet farre from determination might have been thought more fit to be disputed in peaceable and civill Assemblies then canvased by Armes in open hostilitie against your Majestie and your obedient Subjects and the resolution written in the blood of so many thousand innocent Protestants unable to resist and that by treacherous surprize without the least notice of force intended especially seeing therein they say truly and that in all respects only truly hitherto in their Remonstrance that your Majesties high wisedome was able to apply seasonable cures to any such evils or innovations neither can it be beleeved that those Remonstrants or Catholiques of Ireland as they call themselves could be truly informed of any Protestation made by both Houses of Parliament in England or an intention in
doe ascribe it to malice against them and the Nation which is a most unjust obloquie And though your Majesties Protestant subjects of the Commons House saw and knew that there were then daily and nightly meetings of those Remonstrants and their party then members of both Houses Insomuch as it was in the former Session 1641. moved in the Lords House that an order might be entred against such meetings And though your Majesties Protestant subjects found that from those meetings proceeded daily motions in the Commons House touching the above-mentioned particulars in prejudice of your Majesty your government whichin a manner tooke up all their time to moderate contayn them yet your Majesties said Protestant Subjects of that house did for their parts forbeare any such course of meetings fearing to under goe suspition of siding or inclination to disunion at last finding the continued inconvenience of that practise in the Popish party and hearing also that it was muttered amongst many of the now Remonstrants that they intended to impeach divers of your Majesties principall Officers who could not be drawne to vary from their iust duty to your Majesty and your rights and against some other your Maesties Brittish Protestant Officers who had either given opinion or any waies laboured towards the clearing of your Majesties title to the Lands in Connaught the obstructing frustrating whereof was the Remonstrants darling care all the rest of their pretended greivances both in the fourth yeare of your Majesties raigne and those lately being gathered up and for the most part strained out of particulars and subservient to countenance and support the importunity concerning that businesse which plantation if it had proceeded they knew would have beene a full ground of peace to that Kingdome which they laboured to retaine from your Majesties knowledge Then and not till then some of your Majesties Protestant Subjects of that house in these respects did only once meete in which meeting there were some Papists also of purpose to become in some measure prepared to free themselves and the house from those unreasonable attempts in which meeting nothing was done or agreed that ever gave offence or iust distast to the house or any member thereof which may appeare in that the Remonstrants can mention no disturbance thereby which they would not spare if any such thing they could speake of though they have not trembled to present to your Majesties royall veiw many as strange inventions neither were the Lords Justices so much as acquainted with the meeting It is utterly untrue that during that Session of Parliament which was very long from the 11 of May to the 7 of August there was any certaine knowledge there of the Committees being at the waterside in all which time of the Session little was done to the good of the Common wealth or advancement of your Majesties service for most part spent in Protestations Declarations Votes upon the queries the stay of souldiers from going over seas and private petitions About the 14 day of Iuly 1641. the Lords Justices finding nothing of moment for the generall good or your Majesties service then in doing in the house sent to both Houses to consider of a reasonable time of prorogation or adjournment of that Session the rather because the harvest drew on many members were gone home and the house grown thyn as in some orders appeares in the Lords House Vpon the 30 of Iuly the Commons House desired the Lords House that the adjourning might be staid till the saturday seavenight after which was the 7 of August On the second of August the Lords house ordered that in respect the Judges were very shortly to goe their circuites and some of them already licensed the rest of them should be that day licensed to depart and no more to attend that Session on the same day the Commons house sent to the Lords HOuse that they conceived the prorogation or adjournment was fit to be on saturday the 7 of that moneth and to meete againe the ninth of November following on the 5 of August the Lords House ordered that a Committee of that House should ioyne with a Committee of the Commons whereto the Commons House also assented to acquaint the Lords Justices that both Houses had agreed that a prorogation or adjournment should be on saturday aforesaid and to meete againe on the said ninth of November and desired their Lordships approbation thereof To this the Lords Justices answered them that there were three severall wayes of recesse one by writte-of adjournment for which no president was found in that Kingdome another by adjournment to be entred in the bookes of the Houses as done by the Lords Justices consent and the third by prorogation which their Lordships intended But because the Houses enclyned to an adjournment their Lordships consented thereto by order to be entred in the Houses as by their consent On the 6 of August the Lords House ordered that the adjournment should be on the satturday aforesaid according to their resolution sent to the Lords Justices On the same 6 day the Lords House ordered that a Message should be sent to the Commons House to let them know that they saw no cause to alter their former resolution for the adjournment finding no cause in the letter that day received from the Committee in England nor by what they otherwise understood at the late conference and from the said Earle of Roscommon who late then landed there and who brought the letter from the Committee to expect the Bill desired in any short time for indeed they were then at London undispatched and the Letter said they were then busy about their dispatch And accordingly the next day being the 7 of August their Lordships adjourned the House till the 9 of November following All which being the very truth in this particular it is hardly credible that the Lords Justices and their adherents whosoever is meant thereby would take occasion to use those menacing words to severall Honourable Lords in the Article mentioned viz that if they did not adjourne the Lords House on that day being saturday they would prorogueon Munday following or whether it be likely that by the practises of the Lords Justices and some of the Privy Counsell and their adherents that faction as those Remonstrants injuriously tearme them did or could in such tumultuous and disorderly manner cry out for the adjournment with purpose to prevent the passing of those acts and graces that Session which were expected from your Majesties goodnesse But those Remonstrants having broken faith with your Majesty and all your faithfull people do take liberty to asperse your Majesties Governours and well affected Officers whom they desire for ill ends to make odious to the people of both Kingdoms And as a fatall perclose to this Article they subioyne another palpable untruth That after the artivall of that Committee who came not thither till towards the end of August That Committee could not obtaine
from the Lords Justices Notification to be given to the Countrey of your Majesties goodnesse and bounty intended and shewed to the people which might have tended to their great satisfaction Whereas the Lords Justices never denyed them any such thing But De facto did forthwith write to all the Ports in the Kingdome with briefes of those graces concerning matters of Customes which that season most required Commanding the Officers punctually to obey those his Majesties directions They also published Proclamations for the sending away of Wooll and what Customes was to be paid for the same And sent severall Letters to all the Ports of the Kingdome to publish the same And sent warrants for free entries of all Tobacco brought in or to be brought in at all the Ports and what Custome to be paid They gave order for drawing a Bill for repeale of the preamble of the Act of Subsidies They also desired Sir Iames Montgomerie and Sir William Cole two of the Committee then returned if they could overtake the Assises in the Counties of Vlster to give publicke notice to all the undertakers what your Majestie had graciously granted and intended to them which they undertook to doe They had formerly sent over the Bill for the generall pardon which was all that for that short time could be done specially the Terme and the next Session being so neere aswell for passing the Acts then newly come over as upon deliberate consultation in the meane time to prepare for an orderly execution and publication of the rest of those graces Most of the rest of the graces being to be executed there in Dublin and in the Courts The Committee also and the few others of the Members of the House remaining then in Dublin being very urgent to goe to their houses which they suddenly did But it appeared soone after that those Remonstrants and their party had other intentions and determined to be their owne carvers aswell of your Majesties Rents and Subsidies then in the Collectors hands as of all the goods substance and estates of your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects which intenon they within a few dayes after fully put in practise As to the prodigious tale mentioned in the eight Article of dangerous 8. Article and pernitious Petitions to the Parliament in England pretended to be contrived by the foure persons named in this Article and signed by many thousands of a malignant party which Petitions they say were made knowne at Assizes and other publicke places containing as they pretend matters destructive to the Catholiques their Religion lives and estates This allegation exceeds all the rest in malice and untruth and certainly if ever there were such a Petition as there was not it is wonderfull being signed as they say it was by many thousands that to this houre no Copy thereof can be shewed by any But these Remonstrants care not what detractions how untrue and improbable soever they print or publish against those they hate for the truth is those foure persons never contrived or advised joyntly or severally and such Petitions or indeed any Petitions to that Parliament But to open this Trojane Hourse the truth is That about the thirteenth of August 1641. The Lords Justices and Counsell having intelligence out of the County of Tyrone that a Petition to the Parliament of England framed as it after appeared by some Protestants in Dublin was carried up and downe in those parts to gather hands their Lordship 's not knowing what it was and doubting it might be some such thing that might breed distemper in those Inhabitants Did by their Letter dated the said thirteenth of the same August pray and require the Lord Bishop of Clogher to take that Petition and carry it to the Justices of Assize then in the Countrey and to wish them to proceed thereupon as they should thinke fit according to law And after the Assizes ended to send it up to the Lords Justices and Counsell All which was done and the Petition then sent up and ever since remaines in the hands of the Clerkes of the Counsell Now lately in the yeare 1643. it was discovered to the Commissioners for Ecclesiasticicall causes That one Partington of Dublin had a Petition framed in the name of severall Inhabitants in and about the Citie of Dublin and some few parishes within the Diocesse of Laughlyn whereupon he being cited and examined produced the draught of that Petition which upon view appeared to be the same in substance with that which remaineth in the Clearke of the Counsells hands which Petition contained no matter destructive to the said Catholiques their Religion lives or estates but doth rather lay accusations of some disorders and remissnes in the Protestant Clergie as appeares by the Copie of the said Petition which followeth in these words To the Honourable the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons House of Parliament assembled in England The humble Petition of severall the Protestants inhabiting and now residing in and about the City of Dublin and in some few Parishes within the Diocesse of Laughlin and Fearnes in the Realme of Ireland In all humblenesse sheweth THat whereas the Protestant Religion was generally received in the said Realme of Ireland in the beginning of the raigne of our late Soveraigne Lady Queene Elizabeth of famous memorie as by severall good Lawes and Statutes then made and established by Parliament for restoring the Crowne to the Antient Iurisdiction over the estate Ecclesiasticall and Spirituall for abolishing all Forraigne power and authoritie out of the said Realme and for uniformity of Prayer and administration of the Sacraments within the said Kingdome may appeare By which Lawes all Ecclesiasticall persons and Officers Iudges Iustices Mayors and temporall Officers are enjoyned to take the Oath of Supremacie and all persons mhatsoever required on Sundayes and Holidayes to repaire to Church upon the severall paynes therein limited and expressed And whereas ever since the making of the said Statutes it hath beene the care of our dread Soveraigne the constant Defender of the Faith and his most noble Predecessors tohave his people governed according to those and other the laudable Lawes of England and Ireland And whereas both the Protestants Clergie and Laitie have heretofore contributed to his Majesties occasions towards the free Gifts of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and likewise by an other gift of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds more during the Government of the Lord Viscount Fauckland as largely as the Papists and after in or about the next ensuing Government of Lords Iustices to the Gift of forty thousand ounds and the Protestant Laytie likewise contributed to the six intire Subsidies in the tenth yeare of his Majesties reigne which Subsidies in the Collection amounted to two hundred and fiftie thousand pounds besides the eight intire Subsidies of foure shillings in the pound granted to his Majestie the same yeare by the Protestant Clergie In all which payments as in all other publike charges
the Popish Clergie contribute nothing notwithstanding that they have their duties from all the people duly payd them with great summes of moneys left unto them by the death of such as are Papists and by their doctrines of penance and Purgatorie and such like grow farre richer then the Protestant Clergie Yet so it is may it please your honours That after the payment of the said summes of One hundred and fifty thousand pounds and one hundred and twenty thousand pounds the popish partie only was advanced by stay of Execution of the aforesaid Lawes contrary to his Majesties pious intention as your supplicants verily beleeve And whereas in the Government of the said Lords Iustices when the Iudges of Assize in their severall Circuits twice had put the said Lawes in execution against the Papists and thereby brought multitudes to Church who were glad of that occasion to bee freed from the intollerable exactions of the popish Clergie even then about the time of payment of the said forty thousand pounds the said proceedings against the Papists were againe stopped since which time during the Government of the late Lord Lievtenant notwithstanding the said Subsidies both of the Clergie and Laitie Poperie hath beene countenanced farre more then the Protestant Religion they having libertie in the said Citie and in all other parts of the Kingdome to Marry Burie Baptize Communicate after their owne wayes professe their orders we are their severall habits meet in great numbers exercise all manner of Forraigne jurisdiction and Superstitious Ceremonies wthout giving any accompt for the same they having divers Fryaries and Masse-houses that were formerly suppressed by precedent Governours restored to the pretended owners which with other publike Masse-houses newly erected and furnished with Images and Altars are imloyed in the exercise of popish Religion both in the Citie and Countrey And likewise by their Titulary Bishops Dignitaries and numbers of parish priests farr exceeding the number of the Protestant Clergie with many thousands of Iesuites and Fryers the Emiscaries of Rome that swarme through all parts of the Citie and Kingdome especially since the late Proclamation of England against the Papists they have not only impoverished the Kingdome but amongst other their pernicious Doctrines that there is no salvation but in Communion with the Church of Rome and subjection to the Bishop of Rome have so seduced the people and insnared their consciences That no Papist that is made Iustice of Peace Mayor Sheriffe or other Officer will take the Oath of Supremacie And yet they are in all parts of the Kingdome admitted to the said Offices without any such Oath administred unto them and thereby the principall meanes provided for the execution of the said Lawes is taken away And your Supplicants likewise shew that the flourishing estate of the true Protestant Religion hath not beene ecclipsed by the popish Clergie only but by reason that in most parts of the said Kingdome there is many Parishes that have no Minister to read Service others that have no Preaching Minister others that have such Preachers as are very scandalous in their lives and many of the Clergie that suffer their Wives and Children to goe to Masse Besides in most places there is no sufficient maintenance for the Ministrie Yea and some of the Protestant Clergie advance to places of Dignitie in the Church instead of opposing Popery have brought divers popish superstitions into the Protestant Churches Turning Communion Tables into Altars bowing before them worshipping towards the East exhorting the people to confesse their sinnes to a Priest as a matter necessary to salvation with other such like Innovations for which there is no low nor Connon and alsouncharitably if not cruelly prosecuted divers of the Protestants both Clergy and Laity in the high Commission and other Ecclesiasticall Courts and Iudicatures for pretended non-conformity thereby causing some religious Ministers and people to flye the Kingdome others to take the Oath Ex officio against Law and equitie committed others to close prison who refused put downe Lectures discouraged some that kept them or that preached on Sundayes in the Afternoone So that betwixt the Popish faction and those of the Protestant Clergie ill affected as aforesaid being both incouraged under the late Government many Protestants have beene seduced some to popery others to superstitious practices and many others discouraged and full of feares of a change in Religion and not a few unstable in Religion become Newters or Atheists while the Papists thoronout the said Citie and Kingdome have and still doe not in corners only but publikely flocke to and from Masse as ordinarily openly securely and in as great yea greater numbers in some places by fourty to one then others goe to and from the Protestant Churches to the great dishonour of Almightie GOD the derogation of his Majesties Lawes and Authoritie the danger of those poore soules that are either seduced to or hardned in Idolatrie whereby it may appeare that the Papists in all things have bad that freedome for the time past that the Protestants could not obtaine And for the future the Protestants have just cause of feares that the Papists of the said Kingdome though in themselves peaceable yet by the instigation of their Clergie with the multitudes of discontented Iesuites Priests Fryers and others That since the said Proclamation came to them out of England are now more then ever labouring to advance their owne partie depresse the Protestants and hinder Reformation In tender consideration of the Premisses and to the end of the Lawes enacted against Poperie may for the time to come be duly executed throughout the said City and Kingdome the Popish Clergie banished the Masse houses seized or abolished the poore seduced people reformed and all unlawfull designes of the Papists against the Protestants prevented And to the end that all non-preaching and scandalous Ministers in the Protestant Church may be cast out all Innovations suppressed a speedy course taken for time to come that every parish may have an able and painfull Ministrie with meanes sufficient provided for their maintenance that such of the Clergie as are orthodox painfull and unblameable in life may be encouraged and preserved from contempt That all uncharitable prosecution of the Protestants as aforesaid may be stayed And the causes of all the aforesaid evils so searched into that they may for ever be prevented throughout the said Citie and Kingdome May it please this Honourable House for the glory of GOD the honour of our dread Soveraigne and welfare of the said Citie and Kingdome to take the Premisses and every circumstance thereof into consideration So that the poore Kingdome of Ireland may be made partakers of a blessed Reformation with the Kingdome of England by such meanes and in such manner as this honourable House and happy Assembly shall conceive to be most meete And your Supplicants will ever pray c. Copia vera Exem per Jo. Pue No. public Re. And of some disorders and
remisenesse in the Protestant Clergie the said Partington was dismissed in that Court upon hearing therof neither were the Lords Justices and Counsell or any of the parties being of the Counsell mentioned in this Article acquainted with the framing of the said Petition And whether the Petition was delivered to the Parliament in England or no was not knowne there only the said Partington saith that that Petition was about the 22. of October 1641. presented by him to the Parliament in England which could not be a motive to this Rebellion which began that very same day at night neither did any thing ever ensue thereof What Sir Iohn Clotworthie did or expressed in that Commons House against Catholiques was not knowne to the Protestants of Ireland nor is it materiall neither is it beleeved that any thing was there moved plotted or contrived against those Remonstrants or that that Parliament resolved any such destructive course against them till they had declared themselves in the late horrid Rebellion and massacred robbed and spoyled your Majesties peaceable and conformable Brittish and Protestant Subjects But the Remonstrants doe practise by confounding of times to gaine some cover for their inhumane perpetrations For their other fearfull speculation of the deplorable and desperate condition they were in by the above mentioned Statute of 2. Eliz. which they seeme to wonder at as a thing lately found amongst the Records there but never executed in that Princesse time nor discovered till most of that Parliament were dead By the danger of which Statute they say no Catholique in that Kingdome could enjoy his estate life or liberty if executed To this it is to be answered that severall Statutes were enacted in that second yeare of that glorious Queene And which State it is that those Remonstrants do to much tremble at is not here understood But it is beleeved that those Remonstrants pretend to find themselves so much greived with the first Chapter of those Statutes first for that it was made principally to repeale the Statutes made by Queene Mary wherein that Queene repealed all Lawes made by King H. 8. against usurped forraigne power iurisdiction and authority and to sett up some other authorities and judicatures in the Church the mischeifs and inconvenience whereof are in that Statute of secundo declared whereunto is to be added that the continuance of such a forraigne power in matters Ecclesiasticall would utterly banish all Protestant Subjects out of that Kingdom and leave your Majestie few good Subjects there for that the Popish party being dissolved from their iust dependancy on your Majesties authority in matters Ecclesiasticall which in true consideration concernes the halfe of your Majesties Royall Soveraigne will apply themselves for all matters of spirituall cognizance to the Pope in whose power it may be to discharge them from alleigeance in civill causes as he hath often done to other Princes which he will not spare to doe for his advantage and to keepe on foot his old claymes And in the second place to restore to the Crowne the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction which of right belongeth thereunto And to authorize apt Ministers for ordering and dispensation thereof for the better eschewing those mischeifes both to Prince and people and to revive certaine Acts repealed by Queene Mary And for the penall part thereof against such as shall maintayne and defend the authority preheminence power or jurisdiction spirituall or Ecclesiasticall of any forraigne Prince Prelate Person State or Potentate It is to be answered That that Statute is not introductive or maketh any new cryme for that offence was formerly Treason by the law for the first offence But that Statute mittigateth the severity of punishment and maketh it not Treason till the third offence committed after the second conviction and attaynder and giveth a great releife to the offendors touching the time of prosecution so that the Subjects terror is lesse then it was before The residue of that law appointeth what manner of persons shal be fit for promotion in the Church or imployment under your Majestie in civill affaires and how Liveries shall be sued by your Majesties Tennants the restriction whereof is in your Majesties hands to moderate at your gracious pleasure wherein they have of late had good experience of your princely clemency And have little cause so to exclaime against your Majesties Lawes as destructive to their lives estates and Liberties If those Remonstrants do so startle at the second Chapter of that Session It may well be said here is a great noise of danger but little hurt done and concerning these two Statutes they were no such concealed things for they were printed amongst all the Statutes of the Kingdome then printed about the 16 yeare of Queene Elizabeth when few of those Parliament men were dead and they were put in execution severally soone after the Statutes were made and long before that Queene died as appeares by the Records extant Only for the second Chapter it may be said that it was not so frequently put in execution for certaine yeares after the Statute made because all men for the most part in that Kingdome when there were any intervalls of peace did come to Church though many of them went to Masse also Recusancy was little then heard of or in many yeares after as is before declared But when Recusancy began over boldly to looke the Government in the face and that not only but many euill effects of Popery began to be dangerous to the safety of the Kings Majesties good people and government Then that Statute was at severall times put inexecution yet without danger to any mans life or estate neither is there any thing in that Statute that may threaten any mans life or estate the most binding part of that Statute being but to settle and maintaine the booke of Common prayer and other Orders Ornaments and Ceremonies in the Church and Churchmen and requires all subjects aswell Protestants as Papists to come to Church every Sonday and Holy day having not lawful cause of absence upon paine to forfeit 9d for every such daies absence And that limmited to an indictment to be found at the next Sessions or Assizes after the offence committed unlesse men would wilfully abuse themselves aswell towards God as the authorized Church and government In which cases other penalties are appointed not reaching to life In which Statute also are other favourable clauses for the ease of the people farre from provoking those Remonstrants to enter into the late hatefull conspiracy against your Majesty your Lawes and iust prerogatives or to commit such outragious cruelties upon your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects as they have done The same Lawes being now in force here in England and much more sharpe against Papists and these Lawes in Ireland have now bin in force above fourescore yeares yet no man ever lost his life or estate upon either of these Lawes nor Liberty for any long time yet do those Remonstrants from this
and the other wilde fiction of 10000 Scots then not so much as thought on to come thither but long after agreed on after your Majesty under your owne royall signature had appointed and authorised severall persons of quality to be Collonels to prosecute Rebells and sent upon necessity to preserve your Majesties Crowne and Kingdome against those confederats most unnaturall and horrid attempts take the boldnesse to avow the Acts of the Northerne Rebels on the 23 of October 1641 as necessitated thereto for preservation of their Lives Liberties and Estates for maintenance of their religion and for your Majesties rights which none there except themselves ever moved or offered to oppose or impeach which Northerne rising is by Declaration made by many of themselves in Parliament in November 1641 and by their advice printed professed and published to be a traiterous and rebellious taking up of Armes against your Majesty they then seeming to detest and abhorre their abhominable and inhumaine actions of murthers and other outrages therein specified therein also protesting to maintaine the rights of your Majesties Crowne and Government against the said Rebels whom they then acknowledged to be Rebels and to fight against your Majesties Rights and Government and whom now they palliate with the attribute of discontented Gentlemen Neither was that Declaration enforced from the Parliament as they suggest but by due course passed as well appeares by the passages thereof appearing in the bookes And in further presumption those Remonstrants affirme that those Northerne Traitors did send Declarations to the Lords Justices and Counsell humbly desiring to be heard in Parliament which is most untrue there never comming any Declaration or other motion from any of them to the Lords Justices and Counsell other then a presumptuous proposition from those of Cavan which their Lordships answered and certified to the then Lord Leivtenant as is before mentioned Neither is it to be wondred at that these consederats passe over so slightly the cruell murders and massacres acted upon your Majesties Protestant Subjects in Vlster and else where in time of full peace your Majesties Protestant Subjects not being in any posture of defence by reason of the suddennesse of their surprise considering the little defence the confederats are able to make against those knowne massacres And as to the Proclamation on the 23 of October 1641 published by the Lords Justices and Counsell to make knowne the preservation of your Majesties Castle and City of Dublin and to publish the discovery of the conspiracy of some evill affected Irish Papists wherein all good Subjects are admonished to take comfort to stand one their defence and preserve the peace There is in that Proclamation no mention at all of any Prorogation and whereas afterwards divers of the pale and other old English petitioned the Lords Justices and Counsell taking offence at the words Irish Papists wherein there being no distinction they might doubt themselves involved The Lords Justices and Counsell being tender least they in whose fidelity their Lordships then rested confident should take umbrage at any their expressions did by their printed Declaration dated the 29 of the same October publish and proclaime That by the words Irish Papists they intended the meere old Irish in the Province of Vlster and none of the old English of the Pale or other parts True it is that on the 27 of October 1641. The Lords Justices by advice of the Counsell and for the necessity of the time many members of those houses being then in Rebellion and many slayne or hanged by the Rebels and some imprisoned and some beseiged in their houses by them did proclaime a prorogation of the Parliament from the dayes of the former adjournment in November 1641 till the 24 of February following yet that Proclamation not to stand for a prorogation as conceived not fully warranted by Law but was done in those dangerous times to prevent concourse at Dublin to preserve the members of the houses from danger of travaile and to the end they shall not be drawne from defence of the Country In which Proclamation there is no word of Irish Papists or of the Catholiques of Ireland or of the Rebellion raised for which prorogation the Lords Justices received your Majesties expresse command because your Majesty desired the Lord Leivtenant should be then there And the Lords Justices act was therein approved by your Majesty as concurring with the advice of your Counsell And to shew that it was not intended for the full prorogation when afterwards before the day of the former adjournement some of the houses came to the Lords Justices and Counsell and seeming to doubt of the legality of that manner of prorogation desired that the houses might meete and for clearing of all doubts might fit on the 9 day of November and adjourne to the 16 day of that November and at the 16 day of November might sit for a day or two to make some publike Declaration of their loyalties and that a shorter time for their next meeting then the 24 of February aforesaid might be appointed The Lords Justices and Counsell-freely-yeilded unto them in all their requests and on the 17 day of Nouember towards night the Parliament was prorogued in the houses but till the 11 of Ianuary after though your Majesties warrant was till the end of February It is most untrue that the Lords Justices and Counsell limmited them that no Acts of grace or other thing for the peoples quiet and satisfaction should passe For the houses during those two daies did make and publish the Declaration above mentioned and some other ordinance for the provision security and comfort of the Country as farre as might be But they neither did nor could then at the very beginning of of the rebellion move or offer to passe any acts of grace The Lords iustices by his Mjesties directions did make knowne to the Parliament that his Maiesty would not depart frō any his former favours promised to them for setling their estares to such as should remain faithfull and loyall or were denyed the same many of their intentions being fixed as soone after appeared to come by their end another way which proceedings of the Lords Justices and Counsell in that businesse doth appeare by Proclamation then published by the Lords Justices and Counsell with the privity of the houses And as to their being invironed with a great number of armed men in their accesse and recesse to and from the house with their matches lighted and Muskets presented even to the breasts of the members of both houses First they should tell that those guards were put into your Majesties Castle where before none were except the ordinary retinue of a few warders under the Constables Command for guard and preservation of the said Castle against the said confederats wicked plots and conspiracies then discovered And that those guards did but stand in their Armes in the Castle yard meerely as in observance to that eminent assembly
of Lords and others aswell Protestants as Papists and to make a guard for them in their passage to and from the house and have held the same course ever since when those houses have consisted in a manner wholly of Protestants and all done without any intent or designe to offend affront or terrify any of them which the Remonstrants did and do well know if they would deale sincerely in the matter And certainly any of the members of either house then present could not from such a civility rendred to them take up the least apprehension of terror in some inward guilt did not beget in them a feare or jealousie of what was never intended or thought of The same course for ornament being held by the late Lord Leivtenant the Earle of Strafford in the former Parliament and by the now Lord Lievtenant at the last Session Neither did any thing then hinder the Lords Justices from seizing on their persons if they had beene willing to take strong presumptions and probability of guilt for a ground against men whom indeed they desired to thinke better of and hoped they would employ themselves better for your Majesties service It is also an untruth that the Lords Justices and their partie of the Counsell what is meant by that partie is not understood for there was not so much as a shadow of any partaking or siding there in any matter But the Lords Justices and Counsell unanimously concurred in all things did cause an order to be propounded in the Parliament to declare That the Irish had taken up Armes in rebellious manner For the Lords Justices and Counsell did not conceive that there was any necessity for their attestation so that too well knowne a truth the bleeding testimonies of many miserable spectacles men women and children unable to resist who escaped those cursed blood-suckers in Vlster daily comming to the Citie of Dublin and to other Garrisons stripped robbed wounded and spoiled then gave sufficient evidence of then Rebellious and tyrannous acts But the truth is the sitting was permitted two dayes at their owne suite as appeares by Proclamation after published That they might draw up some Declaration of their owne loy alties as they said and their detestation of the abominable acts of the Rebells yet seeing they have the confidence to move in that passage sinisterly to your Majestie your Royall Majestie may please to know that when the Houses had appointed certaine Committees to draw up that Ordinance and those Committees had dutifully expressed those Rebells by the just tearmes of Traitours and Rebels Many of these Remonstrants then of the House much contested it and would not have them so called being privie to what themselves had formerly with those Rebells contrived to be done and fearing it might move the Rebells to recriminate Howsoever the Declaration passed by Votes and was agreed on But that any such menaces to such as should oppose that Declaration were by any man uttered though they say it is a thing that was credibly informed is a most false scandall the orders of the Houses shewing plainly that it was done in the Houses no way urged or enforced upon them There were never any such provocations pressures and indignities as in this Article are mentioned offered to the considerable partie of the Catholiques And although the Remonstrants say That at the time of that Session all the Cities and Corporations and whole Provinces stood quiet yet at the apprehension of Hugh Mac Mahon on the 23. of October aforesaid The said Hugh being demanded by the Lords Justices and Counsell whether he thought that though they had taken Dublin the rest of the strong Townes in the Kingdome which were the Kings would yeeld to them he boldly answered that he and the rest were well assured that none of those Townes would stand against them as did fully after appeare for they all joyned with them except very few where your Majesties forces lay strong and except the Protestant townes which kind of defection was never so in any former Rebellion those townes being in all times places of refuge for your Majesties forces and good subjects and a great bridle to the Rebells And the same Mac Mahoun also declared the privitie and consent to the foresaid Conspiracy of all the Catholiques in both Houses of Parliament in the Summer Session before as is before mentioned The same Mac Mahoun also declared That twenty men out of each County in the Kingdome were appointed to be at Dublin the said 23. of October to execute the Plott on your Majesties Castle and Citie of Dublin and indeed thither they did come at the time in very great numbers of whom very many were apprehended which proves the generall Combination And the Lord Magwire upon his examination declared that in Summer before the conspiracy and action was agreed on amongst the Irish which the event proved to be true Besides it is testified upon oath by a very credible person sometimes prisoner with the Rebels in Cavan That Collonel Richard Plunkett late of Donsaghly in the County of Dublin within the pale who should have been one at the taking of the Castle comming into that County of Cavan about the twenty sixth of October 1641. said openly that he had a contract under the hands of all the Lords in Ireland that were Catholiques to stand firme in this insurrection wherein although the said Plunkett cannot bee believed as to all the Lords seeing some of them have even in this Rebellion manifested their loyaltie to your Majestie in opposing the Rebells yet hee may be beleived as to all of them except very few their owne actions also afterwards concurring therein The same Collonel Plunkett also by his Letters written to the Titular Abbot of Mellifont whom hee stiled Lord signified that hee had beene a meanes to incite the Lords and Gentrie of the Pale to appeare in the Blessed cause then in hand meaning the Rebellion and that hee would use his best endeavours night and day to accomplish Ad majorem Dei gloriam those are his owne words The above mentioned Contract or Covenant was also spoken of usually by the Vlster Rebells before many Protestants then prisoners and was declared by some Rebells afterwards taken prisoners upon examination It is observable also that notwithstanding your Majesties Warrant stood good for foure Collonels viz. Collonel Iohn Barry Collonel Taaf Collonel Garrett Barry and Collonel Porter for transportation of foure thousand men And that the Lords Justices and Counsell gave them all Warrants and other helps for their passage And that the three Collonels that were there had gathered their men yet it being neere the time of execution of the foresaid great Designe and conspiracy their transportation was deferred and pretences made partly of the adversaries of that Parliament in Ireland and partly of want of money and other impediments their men were kept in Bodyes the one in Munster not farre from Kinsale another in Connaught towards Gallway and the
third in Leinster about Dublin and those parts when the Castle and Citie of Dublin was preserved there was a generall change in all former Counsells yet afterwards the said Garrett Barry and all his men went into Rebellion and so did most of the souldiers and officers of the other two Regiments Besides on the twenty third day of October one thousand six hundred forty one The Rebells in Vlster when they spoiled and murthered the English said with one voyce that Dublin was taken Also are to bee remembred the severall Antecedents to this Rebellion aswell in print as in words uttered by Romish Clergie men and some Laicks that within three yeares a generall Rebellion should be in Ireland mentioned in the printed Deposition of Doctor Iones And in the moneth of October before the execution of this Plott It was consulted in a great Assembly in the Countie of Westmeath at or neere Multifernam consisting as well of the prime Popish Clergie as of the lay Gentrie what should bee done with the Brittish and Protestants whether to murther and kill them all or to kill some and spoile and banish the rest or only to spoyle pillage and banish all And how your Majestie should be limmited in your Revenewes Rights and Authorities as more at large appeares in the said Doctors examination The like Discoveries of the generall Combination appeares in the Digest framed and collected by the Commissioners for examining the spoyles and murthers committed upon the Protestants by the Rebells tendered there by Master Watson and others of those Commissioners and sent over to your Majesties principall Secretarie It appeares also by examinations sent up by the late Lord President of Munster in the beginning of this Rebellion that about the twenty three of October 1641. the taking of the Castle of Dublin and other your Majesties Forts in Vlster c. was then muttered in that Province for a while after in shew quiet And the like in Connaught though at that time neither of those had heard any thing of the discovery from Dublin nor many dayes after By all which is somewhat plaine That the Conspiracy was generall and that the three Provinces stood not so cleare and quiet in November as in this Article is insinuated The Remonstrants being carefull to leave nothing unobjected that malice or Art can invent doe suggest that the Lords Justices and their adherents who those were is not yet knowne well knowing that many powerfull members of the Parliament in England stood in opposition to your Majestie made their principall addresses to them full fraught with calumnies against those Catholiques First it is conceived that there was no such opposition given to your Majestie as in the Article is mentioned when this Rebellion began your Majesty being then in Scotland bestowing your Grace and Royall presence on your Subjects there Neither at that time was any difference heard there betweene your Majesty and your Parliament in England save what concerned the Earle of Strafford whom the Remonstrants most violently prosecuted Secondly the Lords Justices and Counsell did first addresse their advertisement of this Rebellion not to the Parliament of England as the Remonstrants pretend but to your Majestie on the twentie five of October 1641. And to your Majesties then Lievtenant of that Kingdome to whom all addresses thence were to bee made by your Majesties Order A Copie of which Letters to the Lord Lievtenant they then sent to your Majesty and by the answer of that dispatch they were advertised that your Majesty had sent to the Parliament of England concerning that affaire and that your Majesty doubted not of their speedy resolution for releife of your Majesties faithfull Subjects The next dispatch sent away by the Lords Justices and Counsell into England or Scotland was on the fift of November 1641 at which time they directed letters to the Lords of your Majesties privy Counsell in England and considering that your Majesty was then in Scotland and that it then became of absolute necessity to invoke all the powers that might stand with your Majesties honour and good pleasure from whom any deliverance could come to assist for preservation of your Majesties Crowne and Kingdome They then also and not before directed letters to the speakers of both houses of Parliament in England referring the particulars to the Lords of the Counsells letters and moving for succours and then also they sent a dispatch to your Majesty into Scotland and enclosed therein copies of their severall letters to the Lords of the Counsell and both the Speakers and then also signified by their letters to the Lords of the Counfell that they had so written to both the Speakers And touching the denying of Armes to the Catholiques and arming the Malignant party who in the Remonstrants esteeme are all your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects in Ireland though there never appeared any Malignity in them in the least degree either to your Majesty or your government or to these pretended Catholiques quatenus Catholiques True it is that many Roman Catholiques aswell as Protestants were armed by the Lords Justices and Counsell when they were listed into your Majesties Army to defend your Majesties Kingdome rights and government against those confederate Catholiques in the beginning of this Rebellion whose plot and designe was to surprise your Majesties Castle of Dublin and your Monition and stores there and all the rest of your Forts and stores in that Kingdome to extirpate all your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects by death or exile and further as is before mentioned Note there were but â—00 armes in the store It is true also that the Lord Justices and Counsell did deliver Armes and Ammunition as farre as they could possible spare aswell to the Roman Catholiques as Protestant Subjects for defence of their houses in severall parts and in great numbers They did also deliver to the five Counties of the Pale Armes and Ammuniton for 1700 men for defence of those Countryes although your Majesty was no way bound to furnish them with armes for their owne defence and some of those armes upon notice of the defection of those trusted with them were recovered and brought backe and the rest soone after imployed by the confederats to fight against your Majestie and your Armyes And for the Cotholiques in the City of Dublin of whose ancient fidelity in the beginning of this Rebellion the Lords Justices and Counsell were fully perswaded they were not disarmed till most of the Catholiques of the Pale declared themselves in open Rebellion against your Majestie which the Lords Justices and Counsell finding and considering that those Inhabitants of Dublin were for the most part allied matched with the gentry and considerable Inhabitants of the Pale That some of them sent daily intelligence to the Rebels sent them provisions of victualls and otherwayes and sundry of them of good substance went to the Rebels with their goods That great numbers of the Popish prentizes servants and
Iournymen of the City went daily to the Rebels and joyned with them and that daily rumours were spread in the City aswell by words as by papers scattered and found that surprises and massacres were intended against your Majesties Subjects the Protestants of the City then was it thought fit and not before to disarme those Catholiques the better to secure the City for your Majesty and quiet the Catholiques who might well know that the strength of the Protestants was their security and from which Protestants the Catholiques never found any violence offered the Protestants profession abhorring such wickednesse the Lords Justices and Counsell also sent armes and powder to Drogheda delivered armes and powder for zoo men to Wexford they sent powder to Waterford and gave them licence to buy and import powder and armes for their defence though afterwards when they ioyned in the Rebellion the Lords Juces and Counsell restrained it as much as they could They sent powder to Trym they sent powder for Dondalke as far as Drogheda where it was staid because Dondalk was yeilded up to the Rebels before it could come thither they also wrote letters to the severall Townes of Wexford Waterford Gallway and Drogheda commending their then seeming forward affections and encouraging and perswading to stand constantly in duty and faith to your Majestie their Lord and King It is true that the Lords Justices and Counsell received an order of both houses of Parliament in England whereby they did commend to the Lord Leivtenant or in his absence to the Lord Deputy or Lords Justices according to the power of their Commission to bestow your Majesties gracious pardon to all such as were seduced on false grounds and within a convenient time to be declared by their Lordships should returne to their due obedience This Order the Lords Justices and Counsell printed at Dublin forthwith after receipt thereof the 12 of November 1641 and dispersed it into all parts of the Kingdom as farre as they could to try whether it might worke any relenting or application of those confederated Catholiques to the Lords Justices and Counsell to the end they might have further proceeded to have obtevned a more full direction for granting pardon if that could have beene likely to reclaime any of them The Lords Justices also found in their Commission and instructions no expresse warrant to pardon such pernitious Traitours and that in all late former pardons Treasons against your Majesty and murther was excepted and they daily expected the old Levitenants comming over with more ample authority and direction and considered also that on the 30 of October before the Lords Justices and Counsell had by publique Proclamation adventured so farre as to tender your Majesties grace to all seduced Rebels whereupon none then tendred themselves to the Lords Justices and Counsell or any other your Majesties Officers and afterwards on the first day of November 1641 the Lords Justices and Councell foreseeing the danger that the Inhabitants of Meath Lungford Westmeath and Lowth who of the Pale lay next to the Northerne Rebels might be first educed either by strange rumours spread abroad or by the false enticement of the Clergy and desirous to contayne and preserve as many of them as they could did by publique Proclamation advised and drawne by Mr. Plunket and others of the Commons house admonish all that were not Freeholders nor having their hands in blood within ten dayes to submit themselves before any Justice of Peace or cheif Officer of a Corporation and restore the Protestants goods which they had taken thereupon they should be received to mercy whereupon a few submitted in the County of Meath but never restored any thing nor proceeded further to give satisfaction of their loyalty but soone after returned to their former defection and ioyned in the said Rebellion All which advisedly considered the Lords Justices and Counsell thought not fit to prostitute your Majesties royall grace to men so ungratefull and deperded for they plainly saw that the confederacy and their perswasion to carry all by force was so strong as their actions gave no hope of any inclinations to submit themselves to your Majesties grace and mercy No not when your Majesties Proclamation under your royall Signature and privy signet was sent amongst them Commanding them to lay downe Arms nor untill they of the Pale and the Irish of Vlster were beaten from Drogheda and the seige wholly raised which was about the beginning of March and that your Majesties Levitenant Generall of your army was in the feild with a strong force of foote and horse able to March where he pleased in Meath Lowth and Dublin ready to burne and destroy their houses and eize on the former owners thereof if they could be found Then and not till then some and those but very few of Meath rendred themselves to the Leivtenant Generall of your Majesties army who received them as prisoners and a few others of that County rendred themselves at Dublin who were all imprisoned as was just to so notorious and obstinate offendors And it were criminall in the Lords Justices and Counsell not to commit them Neither did the Lords Justices and Counsell ayme at any of their estates but on the contrary alwayes shewed much regret at the unnaturall defection of the pale which had for the most part in other Rebellions stood firme and loyall And certainly they would have beene most glad to have preserved as many of them as they could as well appeared in their readinesse to embrace the Earle of Westmeath and his Familie upon timely application made though the Lords Justices and Counsell had Intelligence of Northerne Rebells resorting to his house They also upon Sir Morgan Cavanaghs false and feigned Protestations permitted him to returne to his house in hope of his good obedience though they had cause to suspect his and hsi sonnes comming to the Towne on the 22. of October one thousand six hundred fourty one They permitted Sir Luke Fitzgerald to depart quietly because he came to them soone after the beginning of the Rebellion though the Protestant Tenants dwelling on his land were despoiled of all their substance not without his privitie as since hath appeared They permitted Robert Harpoole of Frowle and necre Catherlogh to depart upon his faire protestations notwithstanding they had intelligence of his former being with the Rebells The Sheriffe of Longford and others of the Offarralls permitted backe againe though informed to have joyned in pillaging of the Protestants and many others in like manner because the Lords Justices thought fit to forbeare all manner of strictnesse at first hoping they would not so farre forget their duties as afterwards they all did and also divers others about Dublin who entertained Rebells some perhaps of necessity were permitted to be at libertie by the Lords Justices because they desired to retaine as many of them as they could comming in any time before they had openly joyned with the Rebells and committed the
horrible acts of hostilitie which put them out of the Lords Justices power to receive them without further allowance and direction from your Majestie which they writ for and desired to receive Touching Sir Charles Cootes journey into Wickloe who with such a small force of English and Irish as the Lords Justices and Counsell could then raise set forth from Dublin on the 27. of November 1641. the designe being to relieve your Majesties Castle of Wickloe and one other only Castle kept by a subject but both besieged by Rebells All the Irish of that Countie having many dayes before risen in open Rebellion surprized your Majesties Fort of Cairis Fort Arckloe Fort Chichester and all the houses of the English in that Countie The Lord Esmonds house and the adjacent parts of Wexford robbed all the Brittish Protestants threatned to assault Dublin having robbed and preyed within two miles thereunto and committed all amnner of acts of hostility as is before particularized Hee had also direction to kill and spoile by fire and sword those Irish Rebells so farre as he could But it is not true that any there dicd by his command save one woman one whose backe certaine of the Protestants spoyles were found and twelve or thirteene men who were proved to have committed the same rebellious acts and such as fought with him in open field with Banners displayed where the Rebells being as hee conceived a thousand strong were by him routed and put to flight Neither could that journey any way terrifie those of the Pale or give them occasion of suspition of any violence intended against them being principally intended to prevent incursions and spoyles of the Irish to bee committed on them as they had in former times often done and against whom they had with much effusion of blood often defended themselves yet now so plainely appeares their preceded generall conspiracie in this Rebellion as they are not abashed despising the honour of their birth and loyaltie to your Majestie to professe sence of those Rebells sufferings and to mention your Majesties just vengeance taken on those antient and in all former and later ages and now declared Rebells and Traitours as one of their motives to take up Armes or at least to stand on their guard as they call it Touching the Act of Santry three miles from Dublin seeming to worke so much upon the Remonstrants as to put them into open rebellion against your Majestie as if they could resolve of a generall Rebellion in all the Kingdome in twentie foure houres It is fit to open the truth of this supposed fearfull and as may be said miraculous accident being of force almost to raise a whole County into Armes in one day against your Majestie and your peaceable subjects though the said County during six weekes after the conspiracie against the Castle of Dublin and the state was discovered and prevented did not seeme able or rather being unwilling by all faire perswasions of the Lords Justices and Counsell used to them to put themselves into a posture of defence against the Rebells of Vlster to find any Armes to arme their men or agree upon Captaines to command them notwithstanding they had upon the twenty two of November after severall invitations thereunto received out of your Majesties stores Armes and all other Munition for three hundred men And not withstanding that the Lords Justices and Councell in October 1641. wrote Letters to the severall Counties of the Pale to name their Captaines gather their men and fetch out their Armes which they deferred sometimes seeming desirous to have all things agreed on in Parliament which they knew could not then meet and sometimes upon other pretences And notwithstanding that they saw the inferiour people of those Counties formerly to rise in multitudes to murther rob and spoile the Brittish and Protestant Inhabitants amongst them without resistance or controll And in particular they had murthered Derrick Hubbert a Protestant Gentleman in his owne house and some others of his familie in the County of Dublin And about ten miles from Dublin besides many other so used in other parts and had spoyled Protestants in severall Villages within three or foure miles of Dublin in Fingall where the Remonstrants doe say the Inhabitants had felt no warres or troubles for foure hundred yeares before yet could Luke Nettervile sonne to the Lord Nettervile who dwelt but seven miles from Dublin in that County of Fingall and the other Gentrie of that County Arme and Muster at Swoards about six miles from Dublin about twelve hundred men on the seventh day of December 1641. to affront your Majesties Authoritie upon this only accident as they alledge to the killing of foure Catholiques or supposed Catholiques because called Catholiques as they would have it and for no other cause or reason at Santry aforesaid On Tuesday at night the fifth day of December by some Troopes of horse and foot Companies marcht out of Dublin by direction as the Remonstrants pretend of the Lords Justices and Counsell and their supposed partie which partie the Remonstrants would aswell have named if any such they had knowne for no such party was then heard of unlesse they meane your Majesties Counsell And before that time they suffered the Rebell Collonell Hugh Birne and many of the mountaine and Wickloe Rebells to enter into that Countrey and spoile the Brittish and Protestants which they had power to hinder and might have done if they had not beene of the Confederacy Whereas the truth of that accident is That on the said fifth day of December intelligence being brought to a Lievtenant in Dublin That his informer could bring him upon some of those that had murthered the said Derrick Hubbert and robbed and spoiled other Protestnats as aforesaid Hee by allowance of his Captaine as he afterwards upon examination declared without the privity or command of the Lords Justices or any of the Counsell or any other Commander authorized to that purpose tooke with him fourtie souldiers that night in pursuit of those murtherers and other Malefactors and comming to Santry hee found there foure persons lately come thither with such Armes as they could get in the Country whom he slue in the place and who as hee was informed were offenders And after this done hee passed somewhat further into the Countrey Note there were many Papists then dwelling in that Towne whom he did not hurt in search of the rest of the Malefactors but could not find them there having issued no other Troopes of horse or foot This rash act was the next day voyced in Dublin and the Lords Justices and Counsell hearing of it sent for the said Lievtenant who upon examination justified the Act affirming them to be Rebells And no man prosecuting the matter against him it there rested And as to the rest of the particulars in this Article pretended to bee motives to the Rebellion of the Pale and the other parts of Leinster whereas before that severall parts
of Leinster and many in the Pale were in open Rebellion as shall herein further appeare True it is that about the later end of November 1641. The said Luke Nettervile without any Warrant for the same caused Proclamation to bee made in the Market place at Luske about twelve miles from Dublin That all the Gentrie of the Countrey upon paine of death should within three or foure dayes after meet at Swoards within six miles of Dublin which was before the killing at Santry which meeting was held and there the said Nettervile of his owne authoritie made everall Captaines viz. Richard Golding Thomas Russell Francis Russell Robert Travers Christopher Hollywood Peter Cruâ—â— and Michael Murphy and others many of them men of estate and the rest branches of the Gentrie and there commanded them to bee with their Companies armed at the same Towne of Swoards on the seventh day of December following which was a short time for such a levie if they had not beene formerly combined and prepared to that Summons They observed it as fast as they could many of them comming thither on the seventh day of December aforesaid and on the eighth day of the said moneth they were there gathered together in bands about one thousand two hundred men armed as was informed to the Lords Justices and Counsell Their Lordships therefore on the ninth day of December aforesaid sent a Warrant to the said Nettervile and the rest in milde manner signifying to them the unseasonablenesse of the time chosen for such an act that howsoever a construction might be made thereof to their disadvantage yet their Lordships were unwilling to make an indulgent interpretation of their actions in regard of their good opinion they had of their loyaltie and conceiving there was some mistake in that enterprize they did choose rather to command them on their dutie of allegiance forthwith to separate themselves and no more to unite in that manner without direction from their Lordships And that the said Nettervile and six others of the principall of them should appeare before their Lordships the then next morning to shew cause for their so assembling and thereof not to faile at their extreame perils All which notwithstanding the said Nettervile and the rest did neither separate nor any of them appeare as was commanded but holding the Messenger as in restraint that night did on the enxt day write a mutinous Letter to the Lords Justices and Counsell acknowledging the receipt of the said Warrant and setting forth their feares by reason of the said killing at Santry and other rumours of unexpected attempts and desired to be secured of their lives which security was also granted them but they despised it Their intention being from another roote and of a higher nature then to meet in merriment in a Market towne and shake hands These men continued at Swoards and other Villages thereabouts till about the tenth of Ianuary following robbing spoyling and imprisoning all your Majesties Subjects that either lived thereabouts or that offered to passe that way being the roade to Drogheda then straitly besieged and soffering no provisions to be brought to Dublin that way threatning also daily to assault Dublin on the North side from thence and from other great Companies of the same confederacie out of Wickloe and Kildare setled on the South side of the Citie performing like hostile acts and giving out on all sides that they would have Masse in Christ-Church of Dublin on Christmas day next after All which time the Lords Justices and Counsell were nor able to send sufficient forces against them About the fourteenth day of that December those Rebells being encreased in numbers from other parts sent two severall strong parties to Santry and Finglas where they continued till the twenty second of the same December when they were beaten thence by your Majesties Forces Neither of which two places are above three miles from Dublin there to bee the more ready to annoy and set upon the Citie when the rest of the parties to the designe might bee ready which neere approaches much straitned all things in the Citie On the same fourteenth day of December those Rebells at Swoards sent another partie to Clantarffe about a mile and halfe from Dublin which Village belonged to George King who lay in garrison with the said Nettervile at Swoards and whose hand was to their Answer formerly mentioned And there gathering together from the other Villages on the Sea side about three hundred men they shewed themselves on a high ground neere Clantarfe to the open view of the Citie those Inhabitants being furnished with store of strong fisher-boates and having a few dayes before robbed and spoyled two English Barkes lying at Anchor neere Clantarfe in the roade of Dublin and threatning by themselves and other Rebells which lay on the South side of the harbour where Irish Boats also were to seize on all the shipping in the harbour and either burne them or make use of them to block up the harbour so to cutt off all accesse to that Port which the Lords Justices and Counsell much feared having then no shipping of strength there Thereupon their Lordships found it of necessity to adventure on some of those parties to trie if they could disperse them And therefore they considered that those at Santry and Finglas came thither by open force That those lands belonged to honest subjects who had not then offended That the forementioned outragious act was committed by those at Clantarfe And that the lands belonged to one in open hostilitie who had given assistance or countenance to the aforesaid rebellious act of robbing the Barkes and of robbing other your Majesties Protestant subjects passing that way and judging that that place and party threatned most danger in respect of the harbour And lest other Fishermen on that coast who for the most part joyned with the Rebells should take encouragement to come and strengthen their designe against the shipping and harbour considering also that by the assistance of those Coasters the Rebells of the County of Dublin had formerly on the third day of December 1641. robbed an English Barke at Skirries about twelve miles from Dublin and that the goods were divided amongst the Gentrie thereabouts the principall part thereof being magazined at the Castle of Master Barnewell of Brimore a prime man and some of the English carryed prisoners to the Lord of Gormanston who sent them Prisoners to Balrothry Thereupon the Lords Justices and Counsell did order that the Lievtenant generall of the Army should and men against them at Clantarfe who accordingly did on the fifteenth day of that December send out Sir Charles Coote with such a party as could bee spared to fall on those men at Clantarfe with direction that if they could beat them to burne that Village and either destroy or bring away all the Boats This was well performed by Sir Charles who killed some of the Rebells in the place and put the rest to flight
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
in them about that time was Sir Phelomy Oneale made generall of the Catholique Armies as they then called them in the Provinces of Vlster and Meath a County of the Pale On the same four and twentieth day of November 1641 was the house of the Lord Moore called Mellifont three miles from Drogheda surprised and taken by those rebels and many men murthered there in cold blood About the same time also intelligence came from severall parts to the Lords Justices and Counsell that many more younger brothers and sonnes of the gentry and their servants and most of the inferior Inhabitants of the County of Meath beyond the river of Boyne and many on this side that river and many in the County of Dublin on that side the County next Meath had robbed and spoiled all the Brittish and Protestants amongst them and many such acts were freely done within few miles of Dublin the prime gentry most of them Justices of the peace looking on in all places and giving way to those hatefull actions and no course taken to resist or represse any of those insolencies notwithstanding the Commissions of government and of Marshall Law given to many of themselves as is before mentioned On the 22 of the same November great numbers of the Northerne Rebels having without touch passed the County of Lowth shewed themselves on the North side of Drogheda On the 26 and 27 of the same November great number of the Northern Rebels were lodged in Slane the Mansion of the Lord of Slane in the heart of Meath and possessed themselves of that bridge the chiefe passage into the hither part of that County and the County of Dublin by examination it appeareth that on the same 27 of November at night the Lord of Gormanstons Groome was sent and raised those Rebels out of their beds to encountrr the six hundred Foot sent by the Lords Justices and Councell towards Drogheda for further strengthening of that Towne with whom the 28 day of the same November the same Northern Rebells and others met and defeated the said six hundred men neere Julianstowne being undisciplined men newly aaised and took their Armes about the end of that November great numbers of the Irish and some of the old English of the Counties of Wexford Kilkenny and Catherlagh passed over in boates into the County of Waterford in Munster and there committed murthers and great spoiles and rapin on the British and Protestants in that County and sent over great numbers of Cattell and other spoile about the beginning of December 1641. And in part of November before many of the inferiour Inhabitants and some of the Gentry made the like spoile of the British and Protestants in the County of Kildare About the same time very many of the old English and Irish were in rebellion about Rosse and Wexford in the County of Wexford Before this time also they had publike Masse in many Churches in the Counties of Meath and Dublin And about the 27 of November aforesaid the walled Towne of Trym in the heart of Meath was seized on by the Rebels and many of your Majesties Subjects murthered there About the beginning of that December were the British and Protestants in the County of Kilkenny robbed and spoiled by the Gentry and Irish Inhabitants Papists of that County and in the same moneth the Lord Mountgarret having drawne a strength of Irish Armed into the City of Kilkenny stood by while the English there dwelling and such as came thither for safety were spoiled and pillaged On the 1 and 2 day of December aforesaid the Northerne Rebells in great numbers were lodged and entertained in the strong Castle and Village of Platten in Meath on this side the Boyne about two miles from Drogheda belonging to Nicholas Darcy Esquire About the last of November or the first of December aforesaid the Northern Rebels and those of the Lowth and Meath in the Pale who assisted them were set downe in Leaguer round about Drogheda on both sides the River against whom the Inhabitants of Meath or Dublin made no manner of resistance About the 4 day of the same Dublin met with the Northerne Rebels at the Hill of Crofty al' Grofty not farre from Drogheda the manner of whose entercourse was this the Lords and Gentry of the Pale being on the said Hill of Crofty the Northern Rebels lay in great numbers neere the Hill and espying the said Lords Gentry some of the Northerne Commanders came to them thereupon the Lord of Gormanston in the Name of the Lords and Gentlemen demanded of the Rebells wherefore they came in that hostile manner into the Pale whereunto answer was made by Rowry O Moore called a Colonell among the Rebels in name of the rest that they came for the free exercise of the Catholick Religion to restore the King to his Prerogative and to give the Subjects of Ireland the like freedome as the Subjects of England had thereupon the Lord of Gormanston said if those were the true grounds of their warre they meaning the Lords and Gentry of the Pale would joine with them and so the said Lords and Gentry and the said Rebels strooke hands It is also testified that certaine dayes before this generall meeting divers prime Gentry of Meath and the chiefe Officers of the Rebels had a meeting at Duleeke on this side the Boyne in Meath and that a few dayes after this meeting at Crofty aforesaid all the Lords and Gentry of Meath and divers of the Northerne Rebells had another meeting at the Hill of Taragh in Meath where they determined on the maintenance of the Northerne Rebells during the Siege and what provision of Beeves and Corne should bee raised on the Country for every hundred of the said Rebels which was done accordingly by their Warrants the Sheriffe of that County called Nicholas Dowdall who was with them in Rebellion obeying them in all things And soon after another meeting the said Lords and Gentry made choice of new Generals of Foot and Horse and other Officers of the Field and Captaines in that County and appointed who should be chiefe Commanders in each Barony and what number of men should bee raised and maintained out of each Plow land in that County of Meath aswell to joine in the Siege as to fight with any other your Majesties Armies which were conceived to amount to two thousand men whereas in six weekes before at the instance of the Lords Justices and Councell they could or would not raise five hundred men for the defence of the County against the Rebells which with seeming great forwardnessE they at first promised to doe and for whom five hundred Armes with Munition answerable was appointed by the Lords Justices and Councell and the Armes sent as farre as Gormanston and there kept till upon notice of the Rebells comming into the Countrey the Lords Justices and Councell suddenly convaied them to Drogheda which the Lord of Gormanston pretends to be done by his monition Though
the truth is the Lords Justices had that morning before hee declared it sent away to have it done that night otherwise they had been taken and hee thinking that the Lords Justices and Councel could not so soon remove them and presuming besides in case they were so removed to have them within a few dayes in Drogheda whether hee moved they might bee convayed by taking that Towne whereof hee little doubted About the beginning of November aforesaid Arms and Munition for three hundred men were by the Lords Justices and Councell delivered to three Captaines appointed for the Guard of the County of Kildare And on the 2 of December aforesaid the whole Company of Mr. Nicholas White eldest Sonne of Sir Nicholas White did run away with their Armes to the Rebels and so did the other two Captaines and their Companies soon after and then did the Gentry and Inhabitants of the said County of Kildare appoint Officers of the Field and Captaines for the Catholique Army All which particulars are here specified together with the times of each action as many others might bee mentioned to the end that it appearing in what ease the Pale and other parts of Leinster stood before the killing at Santry and burning at Clantarfe your Majestie may the more clearly see the vanity and malignity of the Confederates in pretending to be terrified into Armes by those acts which they well know were subsequent to their taking Armes and by their other devised Provocations in England and Ireland no truer then the former And it is observable that in the beginning of the Remonstrance they in expresse and plaine termes doe affirme that they at first were necessitated to take Armes for preservation of their Religion the maintenance of your Majesties Rights and Prerogatives and defence of their Lives Estates and Liberties of the danger whereof there was not then so much as a shadow beside their generall avowment of their acts in Vlster in the beginning of the rebellion as done by authority which was most false and so afterward acknowledged by them and to the end it may appeare to all the world that the Lords Justices and Councell did not draw your Majesties sword upon jealousies or presumptions till the highest extremities and acts committed compelled them nor till the innumerable murthers spoiles and outrages comitted on the British and Protestants in so many places without stop or restraint by any of the Lords or Gentry nor till the horrid defamation of your Sacred Majestie nor till it fully appeared that all was done by Conspiracy and Designe there being a wide difference betweene malicious designe and Profession to doe evill and confession of acts done perhaps necessitated or by seducement And as to the Remonstrants unjust complaint of stopping Lieutenant Colonell * Note that this Read is now Sir John Read For hee being examined in Ireland by the State there as a plotter of that Rebellion was after-ward sent over hither and committed for High Treason Who to escape his Condigne punishment broke prison went to Oxford and was there Knighted and is now gone back into Ireland Read whom they say they imployed to your Majestie with Remonstrance of the state of their Affaires The truth of the matter stands thus In the foresaid moneth of December foure Lords and three Gentletlemen of the County of Meath framed a Petition to your Majestie of some particulars concerning them intending as they told Lieutenant Colonell Read to send him with it to your Majestie but deferred it for that time presuming on their strength to winne their ends another way and on the weake estate of your Majesties Forces to oppose And when severall times the said Lieutenant Collonell Read moved them to bee sent away They whiled it off it is Reads own phrase and the Lord Gormanston said that there would bee time enough for that matter all which the said Lieutenant Collonell Read declared on his Examination after his comming to the Lords Justices and Councell in the beginding of March 1641. when hee delivered the draught of the Petition amongst other papers but did not say hee was then sent by them or desired to bee sent on that businesse And to make this more manifest the said Licutenant Collonell Read on the tenth day of January 1641. wrote to the Lords Justices for their passe into England not mentioning any imployment from the Remonstrnats or any of them to whom their Lordships wrote that they desired to confer with him before his going into England and wished him to repaire unto them to the end they might conferre with him and consider of his request but hee would not come nor any other wayes make known any other imployment or trust hee had for the said Remonstrant By all which it is manifest their abusive tax on the Lords Justices and Councell in stopping or hindering their Petition by Lieutenant Collonell Read or his pretended imployment for them And for the racking of the said Lieutenant Collonell Read it was not without president it being for the discovery of things that might highly concern the safety of your Majesties Kingdom and good people there To the tenth Article THe Lords Justices did never give any such direction to the Lord President of Munster Art 10. as in this Article is most untruely offered much lesse would they do it while the Province stood quiet the peace whereof they by all meanes sought to provide for neither would hee have obeyed any such unrighteous and halfe command himselfe being a Native of the Kingdome allyed amongst the old English and Irish and in all things lovingly affected to the people so long as they by any means could bee contained in duty neither was hee provided wantonly to make a warre being soon after driven to great extremity by their unprovoked disloyalty True it is that from the 23 of October 1641. till about the end of November following that Province of Munster stood in appearance quiet whereof hee from time to time advertized the Lords Justices and Councell and from them hee received severall expressions by many Letters of their great joy and comfort to finde that people so well disposed and as the Lord President signified to them the constancy or merit of any particular person the Lords Justices and Councell wrote Letters of thanks and incouragement to them specially they wrote to the Lord of Muskery whom the said Lord President had used with all civility trust and respect from time to time acknowledging his zeale in your Majesties service and giving him thanks for it in your Majesties behalf praying and requiring him to apply himselfe to the Lord President and bee advised and directed by him for his own future good and the safety of the Countrey whose concurrence if hee had continued loyall as hee stood obliged by his severall corporall oathes to the said Lord President would have availed much to the generall peace The same was done to others both to the Nobility and Gentry of that
Province so farre was it from the Lords Justices to irritate or grieve any of them with passionate or needlesse cruelty neither was there any violence offered to any person of what profession sex age or condition soever in all that time in that province The Lord President rather blamed the Lords Justices and Councell for their milde course towards the Rebels of other parts not thinking the Conspiracy to bee such as they found it and thinking a sharpe persecution would soon quell it wherein hee both mistook their generall combination which hee after found and the Lords Justices inability to set upon it with that vigour that had been requisite The Lords Justices and Councell also sent him directions to authorize prime men in each County to Command the forces of the County and sent him Commissions for martiall Law to bee given to men of quality of the Natives and others of purpose to settle the peace of the Country and prevent rebellion if it might bee The first occasion that necessitated him to use force was about the beginning of December 1641. when the Rebells of Wexford Kilkenny and Katherlagh came over the River to prey and spoile in the County of Waterford before mentioned whither he made hast to encounter them and whom though he was farre inferiour in number he discomfited and slew many of them and executed others and recovered much of the spoile which he caused to be restored to the owners In this action he found many of his Provincialls to whom hee suffered no hurt to bee done supposing they came thither for saving their goods not then beleeving the Conspiracy to bee such as soon after hee found it The second disturbance which hee heard of was in the County of Tipperary where Mr. Purcell called the Baron of Loghmo had stirred and set on the Irish in great numbers to rob and spoile the British and Protestants which they arrogantly did thither he went the ninth of December aforesaid with such small forces of the English as he then had for hee then wrote he found cause to trust very few Papists and there finding where the spoiles were made he pursued therebels and such as he found in the act and the Protestants Cattle in their hands he slew and executed and burnt two or three Villages hoping by that quick course to stay and terrifie others There hee rescued great store of Cattle of all sorts to the owners soon after did the Inhabitants of all sorts rise into rebellion in severall parts of the Provinces and before the end of that December did all the Irish and Old English Papists in the County of Tipperary and Limberick forsake their Allegiance and with them joyned many prime men and others our of Ostery and other parts of Leinster and murthered spoiled and ransacked all the English and Protestants upon these extremities he had by warrant of the Lords Justices and Councell raised a thousand Foot and some Troopes of Horse but wanted Armes for most of them which the Lords Justices were not able to furnish having delivered to the Lords and Gentry of the Pale and others in Leinster for their defence as many as possibly could be spared so as he was in a very ill condition till some forces arrived there out of England which was in February 1641. And then and not before did the Lords Justices and Councell require the Lord President to prosecute those wilfull Rebels with fire and sword as was fit so farre as he was able The Rebellion afterwards increased upon him in all parts and when about the end of February he published and shewed to so many prime men as he could your Majesties gracious Proclamation under your Royall signature and Privie Signet for laying downe Armes they rejected it some saying it was counterfeit others that it was done by coertion By all which fully appeares both that noble Gentlemans moderation and the Lords Justices and Councels avoiding all unjust Provocation at least that they were not set upon those wayes of unreasonable cruelty unjustly charged on them by the Remonstrance and that those Inhabitants were not forced to stand on their defence his case being onely to defend himselfe against them if he could which with great hazzard of himselfe and your Majesties affaires in that Province he was driven unto considering his weaknesse in men and other meanes and their excessive numbers rebelliously gathered together and armed by a long Provision underhand and furnished with the wealth of all the British and Protestants being very great in that Province which they suddenly and traiterously seized upon Touching Connaught the report must bee farre different from that of Munster although the Remonstrants say it was used in the like measure which shewes that they are the same in bold affirmation howsoever the probability or case differeth When this Rebellion began the Lord President of that Province was in Dublin and saw the moderate and winning course used and intended towards those of the Pale and Leinster by the Lords Justices and Councell about the beginning of November following hee went towards Connaught where at his comming to Athlone hee found much disorder in the Province hee found very many of the inferiour Irish and some of the Gentry in rebellion in the Counties of Roscomon and Sligo and that they had murthered robbed and spoiled the British and Protestants dwelling among them hee entred into a faire course of Treaty and perswasion with the prime men of the severall Counties not then in rebellion presuming in some alliance and former private friendship and interest amongst them which prevailed little as hee after found Hee had no strength to resist them there being but one Troope and a halfe of Horse most Irish in the Province whereof hee could make little or no use And six halfe Companies of Foot whereof one was surprized and lost their Armes and one drawn away to Dublin and the rest so dispersed and ingaged in Leytrim then totally in Rebellion as hee could make little or no use of them by which appeares hee was in no case to use cruelty against the people or put them to defence nor so much as rescue the poore British and Protestants in their goods out of the hands of the ravenous Rebelst neither were the Protestant Inhabitants of that Province any way able to defend themselves being not armed against such swarmes as assaulted them The Lords Justices and Councell sent down Commissions of government to the prime Natives in the severall Counties viz. to the Earle of Clanrickard to the Lord of Mayo Lord of Costilo and others and Commissions of Martiall Law to other Natives of best choyce of purpose to prevent disturbance as much as might bee and to stay the people But so little prevailed all the Lord Presidents lenity and swasory courses and the care of the Lords Justices and Councell to avoid any offence or rigid usage towards them as within the Moneth of December most of the prime men of the Province declared
themselves Rebels and of the Conspiracy They blocked him up in the Castle of Athlone by the helpe of the Conspirators of Westmeath They burnt his Towne of Roscomon and the Bishops Towne of Elphin and many other English mens habitations They surprized severall Castles of the Earle of Clonrickards in the County of Galway notwithstanding that on their surmise that they doubted they should not have the benefit of the graces his Lordship wrote to your Majestie and received assurance in their behalfes of the same which he published together with severall other Declarations of your Majesties And so the Lord President continued in Athlone till your Majesties Lieutenant Generall of your Army carryed downe 2000. foot and some Troopes of horse by all which appeares that neither the Lords Justices and Councell nor the Lord President nor any other in that Province did any thing to provoke them much lesse to put them to defence till they had murthered robbed and spoyled all the Brittish and Protestants and committed all other Rebellious and hostile Acts that lay within their lust or power To the eleventh Article IT is confessed that Parliaments have beene held in Ireland very many yeares often for the benefit of the King Art 11. and the good people of the Kingdome But how long Parliaments have beene held there or whether with equall liberties powers and immunities with the Parliament of England and how farre lawes made in England may bind in Ireland will best appeare in the Records Rowles and Authentick Presidents of both Kingdomes and will be fittest for the dispute and judgement of such learned in the Law and other Antiquities as your Majestie in your high wisedome shall appoint thereunto Neither is it true that untrue suggestions and informations out of Ireland moved the Parliament of England to make such Lawes as in this Article are mentioned neither can it be conceived the words or intent of those Acts if they have force in Ireland doe ayme at or can reach unto any the lands or possessions of any your Majesties good Subjects in that Kingdome but onely to the lands and rights of those that have most disloyally lifted up themselves against their most gracious Soveraigne Lord their lawfull and naturall King and committed the most detestable treasons against your person Crown and Dignity and the most sanguinolent outragious and abominable Acts upon the persons and estates of your Majesties obedient peaceable and innocent Subjects so farre as possibly they could that ever were read or heard of without provocation or the least motive neither can those Acts in any respects be the occasion or grounds of those hideous perpetrations Those Acts in their first conception being derived onely from fearefull rebellion raised by the Confederates and long after the horrible Acts of that rebellion by your Majestie and your Parliament advised of and considered in England as the most speedy and effectuall way to raise meanes for the releefe of the remnant of your Majesties miserable despoyled Subjects ready every day to be swallowed up by the deluge of that universall rebellion and to maintaine some being in your Majesties just Soveraingty rights and interest in that Kingdome wholly despised and troden under foot by the Confederates as before appeares Neither can it be beleeved that your Majestie was inforced thereunto it being your owne cause and the cause of your beloved and ever loving people And if any losse should thereon happen to your Majestie which is not beleeved yet would your Majestie be largely recompenced in setling those lands except where your Majesty shall find cause to shew mercy in the hands of a peaceable and faithfull people who will not repine or be slow to straine themselves every way to your Majesties profit and honour who will be willingly taught that rebellion is Treason and so hate and abhorre it and who will for ever free your Majestie and your posterity from those dangers travels and expences which have in many ages lien heavy upon the Kings and Kingdome of England by meanes of the undutifull behaviour and strange seducements of many of the Inhabitants of that Kingdome of Ireland and for which your Majesties gracious and pious provision for your Majesties good people both your Kingdomes will now and in all succeeding ages blesse and pray for your sacred Majestie and your Royall posterity and for ever acknowledge your Majesties rare piety and Princely goodnesse Neither is there any truth in that malicious traducement that your Majesties forces in Ireland disavowed any authority from your Majestie all their authority and command being intirely derived from your Majestie and your immediate Ministers and they wholly disclaiming any other service the contrary whereof could never be heard out of the mouthes of any of them To the twelfth Article IT is true that the Lords Justices and Councell in just and lawfull grounds Artic. 12. and for great and weighty reasons of State for common safety published severall Proclamations as shall here appeare but not with wicked intent or evill event as in this Article is with malice insinuated On the 23 of October 1641. when the houre approached which was designed for surprizing your Majesties Castle of Dublin great numbers of strangers were observed to come to towne in great parties severall wayes who not finding admittance at the gates stayed in the Suburbs and fields and there grew numerous to the terrour of the Inhabitants Insomuch as the Magistrates of the City came to the Councell board with much feare and astonishment declaring that those mighty numbers in the fields and Suburbs still increasing did threaten high present danger in respect whereof and considering the great numbers of desperate and loose persons who were the night before and that morning stolne into the City and Suburbs from severall parts of the Kingdome who were secretly harbored amongst the Papist Inhabitants the Lords Justices and Councell first caused as many of them so harboured in town as could be readily found to be apprehended and secondly sought for the rest considering also that in so sudden and great a distemper and confusion something of extraordinary was of necessity to bee done for terrour to disperse those multitudes so to rid the Town of them and to resettle in some degree the mindes of the terrifyed and distracted inhabitants which the Lords Justices and Councell did chuse rather to do the same by some sharpe Proclamation then by falling upon them by violence which must needs have increased the tumult and therefore the Lords Justices and Councell did then instantly publish a Proclamation in your Majesties Name Commanding all persons not dwellers in the City or Suburbs to depart within one houre after publishing by Proclamation and that upon paine of death This Proclamation did not so much as intend or aime at any known Inhabitants of the Pale or Countries adjacent or any of known credit or good subsistence neither did any such qualified persons then take the least ill apprehension
thereat but such of them as applyed themselves to the Lords Justices were friendly entertained on the 28 of the same October it being complained to the Lords Justices and Councell by the Magistrates of the City that many like formerly qualifyed persons as formerly assembled to the terrour of the City did still resort to the City and Suburbs and others notwithstanding the former Proclamation did still lurk there whose company they much feared as threatning some sudden violence The Lords Justices and Councell therefore on the same grounds as formerly did the second time by Proclamation command all such to depart forthwith on pain of death and the like pain to such as wilfully harboured them And that the Inhabitants should forthwith bring in the names of all such strangers and the Officers to apprehend such Inhabitants as should further harbour them which no way was intended towards men of quality or known credit as aforesaid neither did any of them stirre or take any misapprehension at it afterwards on the 11 of November following the Lords Justices and Councell having intelligence from severall parts of the insolent proceeding of the Rebels against the British and Protestants in the borders of the Pale The Lords Justices and Councell then not fearing disloyalty in the prime Inhabitants thereof as in some other Counties adjacent and finding that divers men of quality and countenance in the Countrey and very many others were then come into the City whereby the Countrey was deprived of defence and left open to the rapine of the Rebels then in Armes And considering that in the beginning of so great distractions as then began to shew themselves in many parts the inferiours might bee terrified or disturbed in the absence of the prime men the Lords Justices and Councell therefore then unanimously thought it necessary and so did for those reasons only and in duty to their then present charge under your Majesty on the said eleventh day of November Proclaime and Command on paines in the said Proclamation mentioned That all persons not having necessary cause of residing in the said City and the Suburbs thereof or in places within two miles about the same their said cause of residing to bee approved of by the Earle of Ormond and Ossory then your Majesties Lieutenant generall of the Army and the Councell of warre there for the time being or such other persons as should bee by them appointed for examination thereof should within foure and twenty houres after publication of that Proclamation repaire to their severall dwellings in which Proclamation there are other Cautions Prescripts and reservations which shew that no unfitting rigour was offered or so much as intended This Act of the Lords Justices and Councell did soon after appeare to agree with your Majesties Royall sense of that necessary retyring of such kind of men in that time of danger and trouble in the Countrey expressed in your gracious Letters written to the Lords Justices in December after concerning the proroguing of the Parliament notwithstanding this Proclamation such of the Parliament as were come to the Towne and their retinues and great numbers of others did continue in Towne many dayes after and those of them that were Members of Parliament did sit and many of the rest of the Lords and Gentry did remain in Town as their occasions moved them and did come and go at their pleasure neither was there inforcement or so much as menaces used to any man that did not willingly go or saw not good reason on the said Publique warning to depart for the good of the Country and safety of their families and neighbours And it is observeable that although that Proclamation did expressely provide for such to stay as having cause and making the same known would desire to stay yet those of them that had a mind to joyn with the Rebels and did joyn with them did chuse rather to depart then to make use of the Liberty given them to stay and yet now would seem to bee constrained to depart which shews apparently the vanity and untruth of that their subterfuge and seeing the unnaturall conspiracy stands so discovered as now it doth it may not bee forgotten that within the space of five weekes after severall Gentlemen of the Pale who had sojourned in Town and intended so to doe that Winter and some of them who had been dwelling in the City no way concerned by that Proclamation and likewise some Citizens of good substance as is above-mentioned did freely depart the City with some of their substance of value doubting the sudden assault and taking of the City which seemed to bee upon underhand intelligence betweene them and those of the Pase then beginning to shew their formerly secret Confederacy till the discovery whereof none of them had impediment or interruption by the Lords Justices and Councell or any command from them to come and goe at their pleasure neither was there any pillaging all that while heard of in the City or of any of these Gentry in the Countrey It is most untrue that after the said discovery which was fully made immediately after the before mentioned rebellious Assembly at Swords any of those that formerly departed out of Dublin or any others of quality in the Pale except a few that continued loyall who from time to time resorted to the Lords Justices and Councel and were gladly entertained by them did offer to returne untill the Northerne forces and the forces of the Pale were beaten from Drogbeda and your Majesties Armies become full Masters of the field in all the parts of the Pale and then the Lords Justices and Councell could not with their duty deale otherwise with them then as is before mentioned Another Proclamation was published on the 28 of December 1641. requiring all persons other then such as had necessary causes to Dublin such as the Lords Justices or the said Lievtenant Generall of the Army or the Governours of your Majesties forces in the City of Dublin should approve and other then such as should bring provision to the City to be sold should forbeare comming to the City or Suburbs thereof This was done in time of high necessity The Lords Justices and Councell seeing that none offered themselves to them openly but hearing that divers being now discovered Traitors presuming on friends within did secretly come to the City partly to furnish themselves partly to eat up and exhaust our victuals and partly to gaine intelligence and understand in what case the City stood which had been a most unwise and unfaithfull thing in the Lords Justices and Councel to permit yet could it not be totally prevented notwithstanding all their care diligence so great intelligence had they amongst the Papist Inhabitants of the City It is as untrue that any of those mens goods who first departed the City intended in this Article or any other mans goods were pillaged seized or confiscated by warrant command or direction of the Lords Justices neither were
any mans goods so much as touched or laid hands upon till a good time after the Lords Gentry and Inhabitants of the Pale and other Counties were publikely declared Rebels Indeed afterwards the souldiers which came out of England in times when they wanted pay did many unruly acts by pillage and otherwayes But the Lords Justices and Councell did labour to restraine such acts as much as possibly they could which may well appeare by their severall Warrants and Proclamations against pillaging and all other unwarranted violence wherein they adventured so farre as to trench on the martiall part of government rather then so much as might any wayes lie in their power to prevent it to suffer such disordered acts to be done and which were declared to them would and so did indeed prove to be prejudiciall to themselves to have such lawlesse consumption made of of those things which well ordered taken from such persons who had justly merited it and orderly Warrants given for it would long afford them subsistence which restraint though it wrought little yet procured great dislike in the Army to the Lords Justices touching the Calumny of pillaging and burning the houses of persons of ranke and quality imployed by the Lords Justices who kept their houses and annoyed no body and of others having the protection of the State It is most false that any such thing was done by the command or privity of the Lords Justices and Councell neither without the Councell did the Lords Justices doe any manner of thing concerning the government neither can it be conceived reasonable that the Lords Justices and Councell should be answerable for the irregular acts of so unbridled and ill-paid an Army who in those necessitous and extreamly disordered times would not be punished Though the Confederates have no cause to complaine of their losses it being but just vengeance on their wilfull and unprovoked rebellion and for persons of ranke or quality employed no such persons ever offered themselves or were imployed by the Lords Justices and Councell except two of the County of Meath who after they had joyned with the Northerne Rebels wrote to the Lords Justices that if they might have Commission to parly with the Rebels they hoped to doe some good for the quiet of the Countrey which Commission the Lords Justices and Councell gave them Although it after appeared that it was sought by them onely to gaine some colour of security for those persons rebellious complying with the Rebels However the Lords Justices and Councell sent them Commission as is before mentioned being desirous to leave no meanes unassayed that might give hope of any ceasing of extremities being then in very weake case to use that just force that was requisite to compell obedience the British and Protestants being generally robbed and spoyled as is before mentioned and the City daily threatned as well by those of the Pale as other Rebels To this Commission those men soone after made a very frivolous and scornfull returne and indeed dealt most deceitfully in all things with the Lords Justices and Councell seeming by letters to give them intelligence which were no other then either terrour and threatning of the Rebels or publike Acts which they knew would come to their knowledge otherwise from the common fame which will appeare in their Letters yet extant yet were neither of these mens houses burnt at all neither were their goods taken by any direction or command of the Lords Justices But being open Rebels as the rest of that Countrey were when your Majesties forces were of some strength and when it was thought fit by the Lords Justices and Councell and Commanders of the Army to burne and spoyle that Countrey to the end to disappoint the Rebels and send them further off the Army being sent abroad spoyled them as it seemes amongst the rest and indeed burnt many other houses where the Rebels were releeved and harboured and from whence they had opportunity daily to take Cattle by sudden Roads from the lands of Dublin having spoyled and robbed all the British and Protestants round about it And touching protected men the Lords Justices and Councell gave very few Protections finding by ancient and late experience that course to turne onely to your Majesties disadvantage It is true that while the Natives inhabiting within few miles of Dublin were permitted by the Rebels to live on their holdings from whom the active Rebels had daily reliefe The Governour of Dublin gave passes to very many of them to bring corn and other Victualls to Dublin for reliefe of the Towne and so did the Captaines and Commanders of other Garisons of purpose to draw to the Market what they could from the Rebels which all out of their Garisons and their Limits then were either in act or full consent and combination yet were none of those people pillaged or spoiled by any direction of the Lords Justices and Councell but all such things resisted by them as farre as they could possibly do against an unpaid Army neither did the Lords Justices and Councell ever give direction or any permission to violate any word or writing of safety given by them or any Commander or suffer it to be done wheresoever they could withstand it But after long forbearance of those wicked and evill disposed people and it being found by daily experience that under pretext of relieving the City they carried Munition and other provisions out to the Rebells and much more relieved them then the City and by that meanes gave the Rebells much more ready way to annoy and rob the City and that some seeming to labour at the Plow had their weapons hidden neare them and if any of the stragling Souldiers or other British or Protestants ventured to passe by them single or in weake parties they assaulted and murthered them and that from those parts the Lords Justices and Councell or any Commander of the Army could not at any time receive any intelligence to discover where the Rebells haunted or rested though they daily lived and passed among them Then were the Lords Justices and Councell necessitated to disanull and revoke all those passes and pretended protections and yet that was not done but upon a fore-warning and time given and that by publike Proclamation And afterwards were the Army sent out though with the great griefe of the Lords Justices and Councell to burne and spoile those parts which they well foresaw must conclude in their own great distresse as after it did for want of promised provisions out of this Kingdom of all which their proceedings they from time to time advertised your Majesty by their letters to the then Lord Lieutenant your Majesties Secretary Neither was any quarter though somtimes unwarrantably given ever violated by the Lords Justices and Councel or with their privity neither was any man killed or his goods taken by any authority because an Irish man or a Roman Catholique but because a wilfull Rebell And indeed those
disorderly pillagings lighted somtimes aswell on the British and Protestants and some Romane Catholique Inhabitants of the City and Suburbs as upon the open Rebells As to the Cities and Townes of Dublin Drogheda and the rest which were kept by your Majesties Garisons It is true they indured the trouble of unruly Souldiers much against the hearts of the Lords Justices and Councell but all their miseries and the miseries of all other good men happened by occasion onely of the hatefull Conspiracy and violent Rebellion of the Confederates because they were under the English Government The Confederates did use them worse then the Egyptians did the Israelites for they tooke away but the Straw whereas these Confederates besides the Innocent blood they have spilt did not onely actually rob and spoile of their substance them aswell Papists of the Cities as Protestants in the Country where they were able but also which was worse having gotten into their hands by way of trust very great quantities of their substance partly in fore-knowledge of this Rebellion and partly to answer their barbarous lavish expences they by their Rebellion deprived them of it all to the utter ruine of many of them they not so much as since the Cessation yeelding them any reliefe in their similate Councells and judicatories though free Commerce granted And lastly as to the murthers breaches of publike faith and quarter destruction and desolation in eighteen moneths which by computation must be after the Conspiracy and actuall Rebellion fully discovered and your Majesties Armies sent over The assertion is most false and scandalous in all the parts thereof For whatsoever killing or destruction was then executed on the Confederates and their Complices having their Swords in their hands in a most disloyall and irreligious action was done in naturall defence and in a course of just Warre as a necessary chastisement from a Gracious and Religious Prince upon the unnaturalnesse of unfaithfull Rebells After the Siege of Drogheda the old English of the Pale being forced into Vlster they did vaunt that they had killed more English and Protestants in Fingall then were killed in many other Counties raging in all extremity against the Lives Persons and Estates of your innocent and obedient Subjects neither did all that killing and destruction amount to the tenth part of the murthers and destructions in neere foure moneths before committed upon your Majesties Loyall and innocent Subjects and that by sudden surprisall in open peace and cold blood when they were no way able to make resistance as is too apparent But nothing could relish with the Confederates as favouring of equity except the Lords Justices and Councell would in base feare have treacherously delivered up to them your Majesties Prerogatives Rights and Soveraignty their owne lives for their substance and estates they had before violently torne from them and the lives of all the remaining wretched British and Protestants the lives of many thousands of the same kind of men and the whole substance of them and the rest being not sufficient to satiate the malice of the Confederates against their lives their thirst after their estates and their hatred to the Protestant Religion British Nation and English Government And the indisposition of the Lords Justices to shed blood appeared in that above sixty persons who amongst many hundreds came to surprize Dublin were on the 23 of October 1641. apprehended none suffered death fave one of Fermanagh who as the Lord Magwire confessed was privy to the Plot and many like instances there are of their great tendernesse in that point In the thirteenth Article THese confederates do further shew Art 13. that one main foundation of their Rebellion is their hatred of all Law and good order They cannot indure that the Parliament should sit which is your Majesties highest favour to your people for the common good Or that the Courts of Justice should sit according to the ancient and laudable Laws of the Kingdom by the benefit whereof they had for so many yeeres undeniably prospered and advanced into that happy estate which none of their ancestors ever saw in that Kingdome many of them innobled and all of them inriched as doth well appeare in the Statute 11 Jacobi Cap. 1. But of all things it is and will bee for ever admirable that they should challenge interest in the fundamentall Laws which they have laboured by all their power and policy to pluck up by the rootes And with a high hand have executed all manner of violations of those Laws both against Prince and people as doth well appeare in the forementioned Collections truely made and by a publique Declaration of both Houses of Parliament made the 17 of November 1641. That they should call themselves naturall and genuine members of the Parliament which is an Assembly of Peace and Order they having rent asunder and cast from them all the bonds of humane society peace and order and that they should complaine of want of safety to come under that power which they so wilfully renounced having under it had full fruition of the happiest protection and being that ever they or any of their Ancestors injoyed whereof under God nothing could have deprived them but their own inordinate rage and appetite Can they imagine it reasonable that because they will bee Rebels without cause or provocation therefore your Majesty and your good people must neither have Parliament nor Courts of Justice to sustaine and comfort them will nothing satisfie them but an intire concurrence of all your Majesties people in their confusions And whereas they affect to vilify the members of the Parliament doubtlesse they cannot but know that the Peeres are the same they were when they were thought worthy to sit with them And for the Commons they are for the most part the same that sate with them while they could bee capable of so honourable a trust and were as active and able in the Service of your Majesty and Commonwealth as any of them much more faithfull And for such of these confederates as the wholesome Laws of the Land have cast out for their treasons and breach of Faith both to God and man there are by due order and election substituted in their places men of Estate for the most part but all honest and legall men They speake much in some of their Printes of the Power and Priviledge of Parliament Yet now because their offences have made them unsit for such trust they spurn at that Power and cannot indure it in those faithfull men whom the fundamentall Laws have appointed unto it Certainly it is wonderfull that those confederates should imagine that by the highest treasons murthers robberies faith-breakings betraying their peaceable Neighbours and Friends and utterly spoyling the whole British Nation and Protestants in that Kingdome of their whole Estates they should gain priviledge to speak evill of all manner of Authority and to bee thought the onely good Governours of the Commonwealth miserably distracted by
Nobility Gentry Officers of the Army and other Protestant Inhabitants in Ireland taking into serious consideration their sad condition the great necessity they were reduced unto and their extream sufferings by the late Conspiracy and horrid Rebellion there and finding by the Articles of Cessation and his Majesties Proclamation thereupon that the Rebels of Ireland were allowed to send Agents to his Majesty who would doubtlesse watch all opportunities to prejudice the Protestants and to indevour to cleare themselves of their ill-done actions the Protestant Petitioners met together at the Earle of Kildares house in Dublin where they framed a Petition to the then Lords Justices and Councell which they presented at the Couneell board and received their Lordships answer the twelfth day of the same Moneth which Petition and Answer follow In haec verbo TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE Lords Iustices and Councell The humble Petition of diverse of his Majesties Protestant Subjects of IRELAND Humbly sheweth THat your Petitioners being pressed by extream necessities and their great sufferings in the present Rebellion for remedy thereof desire to addresse themselves to his Sacred Majesty by their Agents and because they understand by his Majesties Proclamation and the Articles of Cessation lately published in Print that the Romish Catholicks are admitted to send Agents to his Majesty who will doubtlesse watch all opportunities to prejudice your supplicants They humbly pray that your Lordships will bee pleased to bee a meanes that they bee not admitted to his Majesty untill your supplicants Agents may bee present which shall bee with all convenient speed And to that end they humbly desire that your Lordships will bee pleased to grant licence unto such as your supplicants shall from time to time appoint to attend his Majesty touching the premisses And in regard that your supplicants conceive that the dissolving of this Parliament which by the alteration of the late Lords Justices will shortly determine unlesse by speciall Commission the same bee continued may prove of very evill consequence to his Majesties good Subjects They humbly pray that your Lordships will bee pleased to recommend the same effectually to his Majesties pious consideration that timely direction may arrive for continuance thereof Octobris 12. 1643. VPon consideration of this Petition Wee think fit to let the Petitioners know that his Majesty out of his gracious care of his affaires and good Subjects here hath been pleased already to signifie hither his Royall intention to call into England some such able and fitting Ministers or servants of his Majesty on this side as are fit to bee sent into England to assist in the treaty there when the persons to bee imployed to his Majesty from the Irish shall go over and his Majesties Royall purpose therein is already so farre advanced as the names of fit and able persons of eminent quality free from any exception and well experienced in the affaires of this Kingdome are already transmitted to his Majesty that so hee may make choyce of such as hee shall think fit so as all that could bee thought of necessary for the good of his Majesties Protestant Subjects his Majestie hath already provided for with great piety and wisdome Yet wee who well know his Majesties abundant care and tendernesse of his Protestant Subjects here being desirous to give the petitioners all needfull satisfaction in their desires so farre as may confist with the duty wee owe to his Majesty and looking into former times do finde that when Agents were sent from this Kingdome to attend his Majesty by the approbation of this board it was by his Majesties gracious Licence first obtained wherefore wee hold it our duties at this time also to reserve that part for his Majestie And therefore wee doe forbeare of our selves to give any direction therein but doe intend humbly to transmit a Copy of this their Petition to his Majesty which also answers the Petitioners request concerning the Parliament And wee will labour to obtain a signification of his good pleasure therein with all convenient speed which wee shall readily obey And if in the mean time there bee any matter of grievance offered by the petitioners to us which is in our power to redresse here Wee do let the petitioners know wee shall bee ready to heare it and to interpose his Majesties authority intrusted with us towards their just reliefe therein Ormonde Jo. Borlase Cha. Lamberte Tho. Lucas Roscomon He. Tychborne Fra. Willoughbie Ja. Ware Edw. Brabason Ant. Midensis VPon the receit of the aforesaid Answer the Protestants met againe at the Earle of Kildares house and conceived such persons as the Lords Justices and Councell mentioned in their Answer to bee called into England were to assist by their counsell in the Treaty and to advise in what should bee proposed and for ought known to the Protestants not to represent the bleeding and miserable condition of that Kingdome or to make proofe of the unparalleled cruelties of the Rebels neither did the Petitioners then know who those persons should bee And notwithstanding the Lords of the Councell pretended they had no precedent for the giving of approbation to Agents to attend his Majesty without his Majesties speciall Licence yet it was recent in many mens memories that there were severall precedents for it and that in very late times wherefore the Protestant Petitioners conceived that these delayes were put upon the Protestants by some ill affected meerly to gaine the Rebels advantage of time to work their ends at Court and to discourage the poore Protestants in the prosecution of their intendments And the Protestant petitioners being not satisfied with the Lords of the Councels Answer proceeded to the choyce of Agents and prepared a petition which afterwards was presented to his Majesty And on the foureteenth day of October 1643. the Protestants presented another petition to the Lords Justices and Councell and delivered their Lordships a Copy of the Petition that was prepared to bee sent to his Majesty which was answered by the Lords the nineteenth of the same Moneth which Petition and Answer follow In haec verba To the Right Honourable the Lords Iustices and Councell The humble Petition of divers of his Majesties Protestant Subjects as well Commanders of his Majesties Army as others Humbly sheweth unto your Lordships THat wee have received your Lordships Answer in writing to our Petition whereby wee perceive his Majesties abundant care and tendernesse of us which wee shall with all humble thankefulnesse ever acknowledge together with your Lordships readinesse therein And whereas wee finde in your Lordships said Answer your willingnesse for redresse of any manner of grievance which is in your Lordships power Wee doe humbly herewith offer unto your Lordships a Copy of our most humble Petition which wee prepared to present to his Sacred Majesty wherein wee set down part of our grievances Humbly desiring your Lordships to take the same into your grave consideration and so farre to condescend to our just