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CHAP. I.

The main design of the insurgents not general or premeditated.

IN order to set this tragical part of the history of Ireland in a true light, it is necessary to distinguish two insurrections, differing not so much in their causes as their times. The first is that mentioned in the lord justice's proclamation of the 29th October, 1641, of some of the mere old Irish only in the province of Ulster. The other is that general defection, which happened some months after, in the other provinces; and was occasioned by a continuation and increase of those grievances and oppressions which had produced the first. We will begin with the insurrection in Ulster, which sir John Temple,'* and his numerous copiers, have represented as an horrible enterprise, long before concerted and resolved upon, by the generality of

History of the Irish Rebellion.

This gentleman published his history of the Irish rebellion in the year 1646, by the direction of the parliament-party, which then prevailed, and to which, though long before in actual rebellion, he was always attached. The falsehoods it contains are so glaring and numerous, that even the government, in the year 1674, seems to have been offended at, and himself ashamed of the re-publication of it. This we gather from a letter of Capel, earl of Essex, then lord lieutenant of Ireland, to Mr. secretary Coventry, of that date, wherein we find these words: "I am to acknowledge yours of the 22d of December, in which you mention a book that was newly published, concerning the cruelties committed in Ireland, at the beginning of the late war. Upon further enquiry I find sir J. Temple, master of the rolls here (Ireland), author of that book, was, this last year, sent to by several stationers of London, to have his consent to the printing thereof; but he assures me, that he utterly denied it, and whoever printed it, did it without his knowledge. Thus much I thought fit to add to what I formerly said upon this occasion, that I might do this gentleman right, in case it were suspected, he had any share in publishing this new edition." State Lett. Dub. ed. p. 2.—His lordship was at this time soliciting a grant of three (he would have it five) hundred pounds a year, on the forfeited estates, for sir John Temple, which he at last obtained, (see these letters); and the ministry seems to have made this re-publication of his history an objection, which his lordship thus endeavors to remove.

the catholics of Ireland. But in this particular, and in truth in most others, that writer has sufficiently confuted himself; for he informs us, that several of the chiefs of these Ulster insurgents, instead of providing men, arms, and other requisites for the execution of such a design, did on the contrary, but a short time before their rising, take such measures as had a manifest tendency to prevent its success. For he tells us," that sir Phelim O'Neil, and many others of the prime leaders in this rebellion, did, not long before it broke out, turn their Irish tenants off their lands, even to starve upon the mountains; while they took in English, who were able to give them much greater rents, and more certainly pay the same." He has also informed us,3 "that these rebels, at their first rising out, had not many better weapons than staves, scythes and pitchforks ;" an indication surely, rather of a sudden, unpremeditated eruption and tumult, than of any settled scheme of conspiracy or rebellion.†

Nay, some weeks after their first rising, such of these insurgents as appeared to the earl of Ormond, seemed to him,+ " rather to be a tumultuous rabble, than any thing like a disciplined army;" and his lordship was of opinion, that "there were as many arms, within a few, in the hands of six hundred of the king's forces, as there were among all the rebels then in the kingdom."

But what puts this matter beyond all dispute is, “that the army of eight thousand foot, and one thousand horse (seven

Hist. of the Irish Rebel. p. 14. 3 Ib. p. 79.

5 Ib.

4 Carte's Ormond, vol. iii. 6 Ib. vol. i.

* "The difficulty which Moore found to prevail on the Ulster-Irish (to rise), shews there was no long-meditated scheme of rebellion even among them."

"Roger Moore's ancestors, in the reign of Mary, had been expelled from their princely possessions by violence and fraud; and their sept har. rassed and almost extirpated by military executions. His own indigence, and the mortifying view of what he called his rightful inheritance, possessed by strangers, rioting in the spoils of his family," spirited him up to this rebellion.-See Lel. Hist. of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 93.

"Lord Macguire, in his confession, avers, that it was in May, 1641, that he first heard the motion from sir James Dillon, of taking the castle of Dublin."-See Borlase's Hist. of the Irish Rebellion, fol. 34.

"The first insurgents (in Ulster), though without arms or ammunition, got possession of most parts of the kingdom.”—Borl, Irish Rebel. fol. 257.

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eighths of which were Roman catholics) that had been raised, two years before, by the earl of Strafford, was, in June 1641, entirely dissolved, without any inconvenience or disorder in the nation at that time."

"The complaints of grievances made by the Roman catholic members," says Mr. Carte," in the Irish house of commons, in summer 1641, have been insisted upon, as a proof of their intention to raise a rebellion at that juncture: but by all the observations I have been able to make, I do not find that there was any formed design of the body of the Roman catholic party in that parliament, for an affair of that nature. The compiler of the Nuncio's memoirs,” adds the same author, " "(a fair writer, whatever his principles were, and who, on all occasi ons, seems to be well acquainted with his subject, and to write what he believed to be true,) says, "that the English-Irish of four hundred years standing, especially those of the English pale, were extremely averse to the rebellion, and offered their service very sincerely to the state against the rebels; remembering their own origin, and chusing to adhere to the English govern ment, which they were apprehensive would be thrown off by the natives." To which reason he adds another, drawn from the nature of their estates, a considerable part of which was churchlands, which, he says, they were afraid of losing, if the old Irish got the power of the nation into their hands.”

CHAP. II.

The first causes of the insurrection of 1641 in Ulster. MEN whose minds are exasperated by the remembrance of former injuries (which was peculiarly the case of the Ulster gentry, on account of the seizure of the six counties beforeNunc. Mem. p. 392. ›

*

7 Ib. fol. 152. 8 Carte's Orm. vol. i. fol. 256.

"The native Irish being well informed, as they thought (in 1641), that they now must either turn protestants, or depart the kingdom, or be hanged at their own doors; they betook to arms in their own defence, especially in Ulster, where the six counties had been forfeited."-Dr. Anderson's Royal Genealogics, p. 786.

"No great difficulty was apprehended in gaining the leaders of the Ul ster Irish, who had been so severely chastised by the arms of Elizabeth, and so grievously despoiled by the plantations of James.”—Lel. History of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 95.

mentioned) are often suddenly provoked to commit acts of violence, by a slight or inadequate cause; but the immediate incentive to the insurrection of these northerns was far from being such; it was nothing less, than a well-grounded fear of an intended extirpation of their religion or persons. The petitions already mentioned, which were calculated for that end, seem principally to have been levelled at them ;* and probably received most furtherance from their malevolent neighbors, the puritan Scots. Nor will this in the least seem strange, if it be considered, that the dissenters in that province were audacious enough, about the same time, to address a petition to the English house of commons," signed by many thousands in the county of Down, Tirone and others, against episcopacy, and the established religion itself."+ In that petition they complain, "that the most learned, and seemingly moderate and pious prelates, did publicly in sermons at Dublin, exclaim against and condemn the Scottish covenant, and the religion

1 See Pryn's Antipathy to Bishops, part ii. p. 369.

* In the humble remonstrance of the northern nobility and gentry to the king, there is the following passage: "There was a petition framed by the puritans of this kingdom of Ireland, subscribed by the hands of many hundreds of them, and preferred to the house of commons of the now parliament of England, for suppressing our religion, and us the professors thereof residing within this kingdom of Ireland; which, as we are credibly informed, was condescended unto by both houses of parliament there, and undertaken to be accomplished to their full desires, and that without the privity or allowance of your majesty."—Desid. Curiosa Hib. vol. ii. p. 86.

+ Extract of the examination of Dr. Robert Maxwell, afterwards bishop of Kilmore:

And further deposeth, that he, this deponent, asked many, both their (the rebels) commanders and friars, what chiefly moved them to take up arms? They said, why may not we as well, and better, fight for religion, which is the substance, than the Scots did for ceremonies, which are but shadows? and that lord Stafford's government was intolerable. The deponent answered, that that government, how insupportable soever, was indifferent, and lay no heavier upon them than the British protestants. They replied, that the deponent and the rest of the British, were no considerable part of the kingdom; and that over and above all this, they were certainly informed, that the parliament of England had a plot to bring all to church, or cut off all papists in the king's dominions; in England, by the English protestants or (as they call them) puritans; and in Ireland by the Scots."-Burl. Hist. of the Irish Rebellion. fol. 408.

professed in Scotland; and therefore they most humbly pray, that that unlawful hierarchical government, with all its appendixes, may be utterly extirpated."

These incentives to the insurrection in Ulster are chiefly insisted upon in that impartial remonstrance of grievances from Cavan, which was drawn up by bishop Bedel, a prelate too wise to be imposed upon,* and too just and resolute to advance any facts in excuse of these insurgents, of the truth of which he was not very certain. As bishop Burnet, in his life, cwns that this remonstrance gives the best colors to their proceedings of any of all their papers, that he ever saw, I will here transcribe it entire from that bishop's copy.

"To the right honorable the justices and council, the humble remonstrance of the gentry and commonalty of the county of Cavan, of their grievances, common with other parts of this kingdom of Ireland :

"WHEREAS we, his majesty's loyal subjects of his highness's kingdom of Ireland, have, of long time, groaned under many grievances and pressures, occasioned by the rigorous government of such placed over us, as respected more the advancement of their own private fortunes, than the honor of his majesty, or the welfare of his subjects; whereof we, in humble manner, declared ourselves to his highness, by our agents, sent from the parliament, the representative body of the king, dom; notwithstanding which, we find ourselves of late threatened with far greater and more grievous vexations, either with captivity of our consciences, or utter expulsion from our native seats, without any just grounds given on our parts, to alter his majesty's goodness, so long continued to us. Of all which we find great cause of fears in the proceedings of our neighbor nations; and do see it already attempted by certain petitioners, for the like course to be taken in this kingdom, for the effecting thereof, in a compulsory way; so as rumors have caused fears of invasion from other parts, to the dissolv,

2 Burnet's Life of Bedel.

The character given to this prelate by Borlase is, “one of the brightest lights of the Irish church, both for learning and a shining conversation; and in his constant diligence in the work of the ministry a pattern to others."-Irish Rebellion, fol. 48.

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