THE HISTORY OF IRELAND. CHAPTER I. The Cromwellian Invasion, 1640. THE presence of the Marquis of Ormond, and the departure of Rinunccini, seemed to promise union to the distracted councils of the confederate Catholics. They had now a leader to whom the several factions had at different times tendered submission, and whom they had previously solicited to place himself at their head with almost absolute authority; and they were freed from the intrigues of the prelate, who had at length, by his excessive arrogance, disgusted all his supporters. But the curse of divided councils still continued, or rather the evil became aggravated. The confederates hated and feared O'Neill, the person who alone could have met the able generals of the parliament, and opposed all the efforts of Ormond to effect a reconciliation. With much better reason, they viewed with suspicion that royalist party, of which Inchiquin was the head, knowing that its members were fully as averse to popery as the puritans, and were driven into their ranks merely by their indignation at the judicial murder of the king. That Ormond was at this time disposed to act an honest part, is undeniable; but his previous conduct furnished but too good an excuse for the jealous watchfulness of the commissioners of trust, though not for their perverse folly in opposing plans whose wis dom they could not controvert, almost for the sake of showing the lord-lieutenant that they possessed the power of opposition. The principal cause of this ruinous jealousy was the scandalous duplicity of the late king, and the reckless profligacy of his heir. The Irish had been taught, by the mission of Glamorgan, that Charles was willing to grant them terms far more favourable than those offered by Ormond; they consequently viewed the marquis as the secret enemy of their cause, and suspected that he would labour to prevent them from enjoying the royal graces. Prince Rupert, who commanded the royal fleet on the coast, encouraged these opinions; and from jealousy, or some worse motive, exerted himself strenuously to thwart the Marquis of Ormond. Had the king, as had been often proposed, proceeded to Ireland, and placed himself at the head of the confederates, these evils would have been alleviated, perhaps removed; but Charles II. possessed not the spirit for such an enterprise. He preferred the safer mode of perjury and insincerity; and therefore, having wasted his time until Ireland was lost irrecoverably, proceeded to Scotland, where he took the covenant. The prospects of the royalists at this time were very encouraging. The parliamentarians retained possession only of Derry and Dublin, with some adjacent posts. Sir Charles Coote, the governor of Derry, was ready to engage with that party which had the fairest prospect of success; and a great number of the officers and soldiers in Dublin were well disposed to join Ormond, their ancient leader. One brief but vigorous effort would have saved Ireland; but those who wielded the destinies of the country were destitute of vigour or exertion. The capture of Dublin would have ensured the royalists the quiet possession of the kingdom; and this was accordingly the first enterprise they resolved to undertake. But such was the neglect and insin cerity of all parties, that May had arrived before any active preparations were made to take the field. The subsidies promised by the council of the confederates at Kilkenny were not raised; and the commissioners of trust showed no anxiety to provide for the wants of the army. Ormond remonstrated in vain against this neglect; and it was late in June before that, having borrowed some small sums on his personal credit, he could muster a respectable body of troops. Fresh mortifications met him from another quarter. Prince Rupert, whom he had requested to blockade the Bay of Dublin, while he pushed the siege by land, positively refused obedience, and remained with his fleet in one of the southern harbours. After a vain display of their troops before Dublin, which Ormond seems to have expected would have produced an insurrection of the royalists in the city, it was determined to reduce the garrisons of Drogheda and Dundalk, before besieging the capital; and the conduct of this enterprise was intrusted to Lord Inchiquin. Drogheda, after a brief siege, was taken by assault. Dundalk, though commanded by Monk, surrendered; and several castles which had been seized by O'Neill, were reduced by a body of the confederates under Lord Castlehaven. Before Ormond's army could be reassembled, the garrison of Dublin was reinforced by the parliamentary colonels Coote and Venables, with two thousand six hundred soldiers, and a large supply of provisions and ammunition. At the same time, news arrived that Cromwell, having assembled a powerful army, was preparing to sail over to Munster, where he hoped to be joined by several of the puritans. It was indeed well known to all the leaders, that the ultra-protestants in Youghal, Kinsale, and Cork, were secretly inclined to favour the cause of the parliament; for, with them, hatred of popery was a much more powerful feeling than love of their sovereign. A council of war was held on the receipt of this alarming intelligence; and, after long deliberation, it was resolved to send Lord Inchiquin, with eleven hundred horse, to secure the province of Munster! The impolicy of weakening an army already inadequate to the operations that had been undertaken, and the utter absurdity of sending such a trifling force to secure an entire province, are sufficiently obvious; yet were the resolutions of the council not wholly indefensible. Inchiquin was regarded by the confederates with equal fear and hatred. His hands were red with the blood of their murdered brethren. His unrelenting enmity to the religion was not disguised, even while he fought in their ranks. To remove him, therefore, to a different sphere of action, was the only means by which the confederates believed that peace could be preserved in their camp. Ormond consented to the arrangement from a different motive. He thought that the fanatics of Youghal might be kept in their loyalty, by being placed under a commander as bigoted as themselves: and if Cromwell was excluded from the garrisoned towns, he trusted that the difficulties of the country, and an active guerilla warfare, would force him to return home. The army of the confederates still seemed sufficient for the capture of Dublin, and was successful in reducing several important posts in the neighbourhood. The enemy, thus considerably straitened, had great difficulty in procuring forage for their horses, and could only use a meadow close to the town, which was commanded by a little village called Baggatrath. To secure and fortify this village appeared to the besiegers the best means of distressing the garrison; and a strong detachment, under General Purcel, received orders to intrench themselves there during the night. Though the detachment had not to advance more than a mile, yet by some unac countable mismanagement* the guides lost their way, and Purcell did not reach the ground until it was almost daybreak. When Ormond came to view the works, he found that they had been scarcely begun; and that the garrison, aware of the importance of the place, was about to make a vigorous attack on his detachment. Under these circumstances, the lord-lieutenant should either have withdrawn the troops, or brought up his whole army to cover his works. He did neither, but returned to his camp at Rathmines, and lay down to sleep! The marquis had not been in bed above an hour when he was awakened by volleys of shot; and before he could get a hundred yards from his tent, the remains of the detachment at Baggatrath were driven into his lines. A scene of indescribable confusion followed; Inchiquin's old soldiers threw down their arms, refusing to fight against their puritanical brethren; the greater part of the Irish cavalry galloped from the field without striking a blow; two regiments alone could be formed, and they, after an inefficient charge, were broken. The infantry, surprised and badly officered, made no attempt to resist; and the parliamentarians, to their own great astonishment, obtained a complete victory. All the artillery, tents, baggage-carriages, together with the military chest, fell into the hands of the enemy. About three thousand prisoners were taken, several of whom were murdered in cold blood, after laying down their arms. The greater part of those who *There is some reason to believe that this calamity was caused by treachery. The native Irish and the priesthood, with some appearance of justice, dreaded Ormond as much as Cromwell; and feared, that if he became master of Dublin, he would treat them with the same injustice that the Irish had before received from the royalists, and were consequently unwilling to see him in a position where he would be independent of their assistance. When Riely, the titular primate, was tried four years after this by the republicans, for burning the castle of Wicklow, and murdering the garrison during a cessation of arms, he had the impudence and profligacy to plead, that the guides led the detachment astray by his directions; and for this piece of treachery his life was actually spared, notwithstanding the atrocity of his crimes. |