to his late Majesty and his lawfull Successor whom God of his mercy contâ—nâ—e long and happiâ—y aâ—d gâ—oriously sitting on his Fathers Throne and his Posterity to the Worlds end I confess that Peace was rejected and most perfidiously scandalously and fatally too rejected but I will ever say nevertheless it was rejected by a disobedient Army by some in that ungodly Clergy men and a few other contrivers of mischief who by their numbers proceedings hypocrisie force craft c. and by their breach of their own Oath of Association and by their faithfulness to their own acknowledged supreme Governours of the Confederacy the Council and general Assembly and by making themselves by such arts the prevailing party amongst the Irish Catholicks at that very nick of time when the Peace of 46. was proclamed in Dublin Kilkenny not only may be said to have had in many things a perfect resemblance unto the Janizaries of England and their Adherents there in the Parliament and Council and amongst the Clergy and Laity in general but even to have had the same proportion to the Confederate Catholicks in general which those English Mamalukes and their partakers had to the loyal Protestants and mournful at that time Nation of England To demonstrate which I shall give more evident proofs if it shall and when it shall be necessary as now it is not in answer to this Gentleman 's present Design or Book than he shall be able to give satisfactory answers And shall at this time content my self with telling the Reader that if the then Donogh Lord Viscount of Muskry now Earl of Clancarthy Edmond Lord Viscount Montgarrett Walter Bagnell Esquire Sir Robert Talbott Baronet Thomas Tyrell Esquire Richard Beallings Esquire Gerott Fennel Esquire Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Jeoffry Brown Esquire Sir Pierce Crosby Knight Sir Richard Blake and other Members of the supreme Council and Commissioners who concluded that Peace and published it at Kilkenny and in pursuance thereof received there the Lord Lieutenant with all due respects and demonstrations of hearty joy and loyalty their imprisonments soon after both there at Wexford and other places and their other sufferings then by and under their lately before fellow-Confederates and the power or authority by which they were so imprisoned and under which they so much suffered the illegal violent forcible usurpation of it even I say against the Laws of the Confederacy and Oath of Association and without any consent or even advice or requisition but plainly against the known will and inclinations of the generality of the Confederates when the Lord Nuncio and two or three more by the countenance and terrour of armed Legions beeking them made a new supreme Council and himself President of it and joyned Council and Congregation together and immediately after hurried on two Armies in an evil hour to besiege the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin and harass'd the Country in their march und being disappointed by the justice of God towards them and favour of Heaven to the Loyal Party and to the generalâ—â—y even of the Confederatss returned in great displeasure and rage and through despair convoked an Assembly which otherwise he was never like to do but of such men where they could possibly as were known to be most averse from all thoughts of Peace and being sate overawed them and took away all freedom from them however they were composed and even forced them by threats of Excommunications and power of that Army near the Town whereof they were sure for such designes to reject the Peace even after the Commissioners who concluded it were cleared upon too manifest evidence to have proceeded according to their instructions to a tittle and by a full Authority given them by the precedent General and free Assembly of the Nation I say that if all these proceedings be considered and particularly the force that lay then upon all the Provinces and Quarters and People that should otherwise have freedom of Election to Assemblies and Suffrages in them and that would in case of such due freedom unquestionably vote for a perfect submission to that Peace the resemblance and proportion above given will appear manifestly to all indifferent men that have but even a very ordinary knowledge of the Irish Nation and affairs since 41. and of the difference of interests among that People these 500. years past since the first English Conquest under Henry 2. and consequently it will appear that our Person of Quality will find himself obliged either to maintain a truth in this very false assertion which yet I believe he will not dare The Protestants and Nation of England were guilty of the sacrilegious breach with Charles the 1. which through so many wiles brought him at last to the Scaffold Or to confess that the Irish Catholicks or Nation of Ireland cannot be said to be guilty even of that one persidious breach of the Articles of 46. much less guilty of having often if not always broke the Conditions either of that or any other And yet I alwayes grant him what I know to be true and am right sorry to know that even some thousands have been guilty of that horrible breach in 46. Nay grant moreover all my Conscience or knowledge or which is the same thing to me all that the truth it self will permit me to grant him that some few Persons of Quality and some Regiments and some Towns too of the Irish Catholicks have often if not alwayes broke the Conditions either of the first or last Peace or of both but withall say that some Persons of Quality and some Regiments of England and Scotland both and some Towns too broke their Allegiance and Faith and often too if not alwayes in a farr more pernicious and horrible nature with his late and present Majesty And that my Answerer will not therefore charge their Crimes on the Protestants or Nation of England or on the universality generality or greater part of them which yet such an indefinite expression had he used it must do 135. But however this be or any thing else I have said in relation to that Peace of 46 it can neither make nor marr his Objections or my Answers on the subject of the last Peace or that of 48. which is that only where on our contest is and must be Neither can any thing said here be drawn to a consequence that I would recall or decline what I have confessed in my Letter of the Judgements of God most justly pursuing the Irish Nation in general for the breach of publick Faith so notorious and scandalous in that of 46. albeit the Nation in general be not guilty of it We know the very Army of God hath been defeated for the Judges Chap. 7. V 4. aâ—d 5. sin even of one man alone as we find in the case of Achan at Ai and whole Nations and great Kingdoms and flourishing Empires most exemplarly punished and by conquest and slavery and subjection to a forein power
for the sins of the lesser part of the people and sometimes for those of a very few and Innocents too involved in the common calamity but involved justly by him who is above all Laws by his Soveraign Dominion over all Creatures and by that privilege which is incommunicable to any earthly Judge or King doing Justice in a legal way where he may discriminate persons 136. To that which our Person of Quality adds here to end his third difference that the Irish after an unparalleld Rebellion were in effect made Lords of all Ireland even the bloody Pag. 91. stage upon which they had acted their guilt I say that in a few words are two manifest untruths and one superfluous impertinent exaggeration so often repeated and one too which may be returned on himself and those he pleads for not only with so many wicked Maxims and sinfull advices but with so many known falsities and impertinencies 137. Though I detest all kind of Rebellion against lawfull power as being condemned by the Laws of God and Nature yet I can tell this Gentleman that Rebellion of Ireland was not only parallel'd but surpassed and surpassed too in a thousand degrees by many Rebellions of other Countries even amongst Christians For not to speak of that of Catalonia in our own days the Sicilian Vespers and the Butchery of Suisses and the murther of the Danes in England and a hundred others which we read in History did surpass it and surpass it so And all those did that by design and in effect subverted the very fundamentals of all Government Civil and Religious And I am sure if none else did that of this Gentlemans Clients and their partakers must have done so who made their Rebellion the most unparallel'd indeed by the most execrable Parricide that ever was not to mention so many other adjuncts to render it incomparably worse than that of the Irish the cruel butchery of so many thousand subjects the perpetual ruine of so many millions of innocent people in the three Nations and the subversion in part executed and for the rest intended of all the very fundamentals of the Commonwealth both Temporal and Ecclestical yea of all Religion and of all propriety and birth-right whatsoever And though I acknowledge and hope all Irish Catholicks do his Majesties very gracious Concessions and favours in the Articles of 48. Yet I must tell this Gentleman those very Articles no less manifestly convince of untruth what he says here that by them or otherwise the Irish were in effect Pag. 9 made Lords of all Ireland then it is apparent out of the very Articles and no man of reason would believe otherwise though he never had read them and yet seen this Gentlemans assertion to the contrary they were not such as forced from his Majesty all the Regalia both Ecclesiastical and Temporal nay I say now nor any essential or integral part of the Regalia albeit this Gentleman affirms in another they were and I have already proved they were not And if this be true my answer to his Oâ—jection concerning the Regalia as it is evidently such without any question or contradiction but that very untrue and very irrational one of this Person of Quality how can it be true that the Irish were in effect by these Articles made Lords of all Ireland For to have been made otherwise he doth not dispute as there is no ground for any such dispute Nay since the Irish Catholicks by these Articles or otherwise were not made Lords or did not pretend the Lordship Right Possession or Use of any Protestants Goods Lands Houses Estates c. either English Scots Welsh Irish or of any other Nation having right by his Majesties Laws or pretending such to live in Ireland how could they in effect be made Lords of all Ireland So farr they were from any such thing that they excluded not any nor were made capable to exclude any at all from any kind of Rights either Civil or Religious the very possession of such Churches as they then held in their own quarters at the making of that Peace not being assured them otherwise by Articles of Peace Pag. 8. Art 1. those Articles than that they should be permitted or should not be disturbed from that possession till a Parliament were convened As for his exaggerating repetition of the bloody Stage upon which they had acted their guilt I am sure he may be upon Pag. 91. certain grounds and particular instances answered 1. by charging those who are his white boyes with having made that Stage more bloody and as inhumanly too nay yet far more than those very Irish miscreants of the rascal multitude have that acted their guilt even of so barbarous murthers either precedently concomitantly or subsequently however this Gentleman will have it upon their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion in that Country Whereof if he will see some particulars I refer him to R. S. in his Book printed at London 1662. intituled A Collection of some of the Murthers and Massacres committed on the Irish in Ireland since the 23. of October 1641. 2. By denying his supposition of the Irish Nation or Catholicks of Ireland or of their known Representatives the Supreme Council or General Assembly or Commissioners that concluded that Peace or of the generality nay of any considerable party of the people after at any time confederated with the rest or that submitted to that Peace or now desire the benefit of it to have so acted their guilt upon that Stage as to be guilty of the bloodiness of it by any barbarous or inhumane Crimes of Murther which I know this Gentleman aims at in this exaggerating repetition For if he mean any thing else or that of the breach it is answered already And that he may see I give him not a bare denyal for an answer I refer him to the 18 Article of that Peace of 48. where in the 21 Page of these Articles printed he may read the publick desires of that whole Nation For there he will find it provided by them that such barbarous and inhumane crimes as shall be particularized Articles of Peace in 48. Pag. 21. and agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costilloe Lord President of Connaght Donogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athenry Alexander M. Domel Esquire Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Jeffrey Brown Donagh O Callaghan Tirlagh O Neile Miles Relly and Gerrald Fennel Esquire or any seven or more of them as to the actors and procurers thereof be left to be tryed and adjudged by such indifferent Commissioners as shall be agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costilloe c. or any seven or more of them and that the power of the said Commissioners shall continue only for two years next ensuing after the date of their
other Causes of them Which is the reason I give out of that little and accurate Piece the following Passages and even in the Authors words which relate to our present purpose THey therefore he means the English Nation and the The Brief Narrative Pag. 6 7 8 9 10 11. whole World may be pleas'd to know that we to wit the Irish are so farr from justifying any horrid actions perpetrated at that time when but a few of any quality raised a Rebellion in the North as we have and still make it our request that those Crimes and all Massacres and Murthers then or after committed whoever shall be found guilty of them be punished Yet we may not omit although no Motive whatsoever could justifie their Undertakings to represent that before they fâ—ll from their Obedience to the Government Sir William Parsons one of the Lords Justices that supplyed the Deputies place at a publick Entertainment before many witnesses did positivâ—ly declare that within a twelve-month no Catholick should be seen in Ireland Many hands were sought and thousands were found to subscribe a Petition tending to the introducing of a severe Persecution against Catholicks who were the farr greater number of the Inhabitants of Ireland And that the menace of an Invasion of a Scotish Army of which men at that time did frequently discourse bred frightful apprehensions So as these and other grounds of suspition being improved by such among them whose particular Interests could be most favoured and better advanced in unquiet times laid the foundation of that Rebellion But even these men and at that time when the Lords Justices did not appear to be prepared for resistance by their Râ—monstrance humbly begg'd their Grievances might be redressed by the advice of the two Houses of Parliament then met at Dublin But the Lords Justices who by their words and actions not only expressed their unwillingness to stop the farther growth of these Distempers but meant to increase them and were often heard to wish that the number were greater of such as became Criminal by proroguing the Parliament made them desperate However the Nation by their Representatives in the two dayes which were only allowed them to sit husbanded their time so as to leave to posterity a monument of their aversion to such attempts by declaring that those men had traeiterously and rebelliously taken Armes and offering to employ their Lives and Fortunes in reducing them to their Obedience if they might be permitted then to sit But this was denied them and by a strange change from the antient form of Government a Parliament then sitting was prorogued whereas our Ancestors upon a farr less occasion than quieting of so high Distempers were usually called upon to assist the King with their Advice To this may be added that the Marquess of Ormond proposed at the Council-Board the raising of five thousand men in the space of three weeks if he might be authoriz'd so to do with which strength he undertook to dissipate those then weak beginnings of the ensuing mischiefs and to prevent their farther growth but was refused it So as thus farr we may observe who they were that widened the wound instead of stanching the blood This foundation being thus laid that which at first was but a spark and might be easily quenched began to flame And freedom of Rapine having suddenly drawn numbers together the unreprest Conspiratours became a formidable Arme and besieged Tredah passing the River of Boyne which was â—â—e Rubicon of the Pale and had in all former Rbeellions been maintained with their blood by those antient English Colonies planted there Now it was that the times began to favour the design of the Lords Justices and their Party in the Council which was as forward as they to foment the Distractions For the Ulster Army lying in the bowels of the Country the Forces being not yet come out of England and the Natives themselves both unarm'd and distrusted by the State they were forced at first by their regular contribution to prevent the desolation which would have followed their refusal to supply them Hereupon such Contributors began to be looked upon and characted as men fallen from the Government And a Party that was sent from Dublin having killed at Santry but three miles distant from thence some innocent Husbandmen among whom there was two Protestants and carried their heads as in triumph to the City the neighbour Inhabitants alarm'd thereat had recourse to such Weapons as first came to hand and gathered in a Body Whereupon the Lords Justices set forth a Proclamation in nature of a safe Conduct by which these so in Armes and Mr. King of Clontarffe by special name had five dayes respite to come in and present their Grievances But before three nights of the time prefixed were expired Mr. King 's house was pillaged and burnt by direction of the Lords Justices Not long after supplyes being arrived out of England and the siege of Tredah raised and consequently the force removed which necessitated the Inhabitants to comply with the Ulster Army the Nobility and Gentry of the Pale prevailed with Sir John Read his Majesties sworn Servant a Stranger to the Country un eâ—gaged and an eye witness of their proceedings then upon his journey to England to take the pains to present their Remonstrance to the late King of ever blessed memory and to beg pardon for what they were thus compelled to act But he poor Gentleman coming to Dublin was apprehended and not concealing the Message intrusted with him was put to the Rack The most part of the questions which were then asked him in that torment being no other than such as might lead him to accuse the King and Queen to be Authors and Fomenters of that Rebellion Moreover the two Houses of Parliament in England for the better induciâ—g the Rebells to repent of their wicked Attempts commended to the Lords Justices according to the power granted them in that behalf to bestow his Majesties gracious pardon to all such as within a convenient time c. should return to their Obedience The Lords Justices notwithstanding such Order and his Majesties gracious pleasure signified to that effect by their Proclamation dated in November 1641. limited such his Majesties and the Parliaments of England their favourable and general Intentions to the Inhabitants of a few Counties provided alwayes they were no Free-holders and afforded them no longer time than ten dayes after the Proclamation to receive benefit thereby But notwithstanding these restrictions the Lord of Dansany Sir John Nettervill Patrick Barnewall of Kiibrue and many others who had notice of his Majesties gracious Inclination towards the Nation and the Parliament of Englands Order in favour of them submitted to the Lord Marquess of Ormond then Licutenant General of his Majesties Army who recommended them to the Lords Justices intimating that the good usage to be extended to them would have an influence on many others and be a great motive to