the declarations made by the clergy; but he refused to take any further notice of "such a collection of notorious falsehoods as were contained in that declaration," which, as his historian observes, could only impose upon the ignorant populace.

During the sitting of the assembly at Loughrea, the resolution of the marquess received further strength, by a letter written from Scotland, by the king, of which we give an extract: "The hazards," says he in his letter of that date, "and dangers, besides the trouble, I hear you do expose yourself unto on all occasions, make me entreat and command you to have a care of your person, in the preservation of which, (I would have you believe) I am so much concerned, both in my interest and affection, that I would not lose you for all I can get in Ireland. If the affairs there be in such a condition, as it will be necessary for you to quit the country and retire into France, then I do very earnestly desire and entreat you to repair to my brother, the duke of York, to advise and assist him with your counsels; upon which I have such a confidence and reliance, that I have wrote, and sent instructions to him, to be advised by you upon all occasions, and I doubt not of his cheerful and ready compliance, and that you will find all good satisfaction from him."*

The bishops also sent to hasten his departure; and, through their messengers, the bishops of Dromore and Dean Kelly, desired that he should commit the royal authority in his hands to certain nominees of their own, to whom they would give their assistance, while they were resolved to resist any others. These were Sir N. Plunket, Terence MacLoghlan, Philip O'Reily, Tirlogh O'Boile, the marquess of Clanricarde, and Dermott O'Shaughnessy. In this proposal it was perfectly understood, that the nomination of the marquess of Clanricarde was merely specious, and under the assumption that he would refuse to act with the others; it was also plainly apparent that the object of the entire selection, was to obtain through the intervention of persons wholly at their disposal, the entire command of the kingdom. Thus miserably will men fight for factious motives, in the very front of approaching perdition.

The marquess of Ormonde appointed lord Clanricarde his deputy. He sailed on the 7th December, 1650, from the bay of Galway, but was still delayed by a correspondence with the assembly at Loughrea, on the appointment of lord Clanricarde. For this purpose he landed at Glaneinagh till the 11th, when he again sailed. The vessel which conveyed him was a frigate of 28 guns, sent over for him from France by the duke of York. He carried with him the earl of Inchiquin, colonel Wogan, and about forty other officers. In the Bay of Biscay they met with a privateer, which was deterred from attacking them by the martial appearance of the company The passage was very tempestuous, and after three weeks tossing they entered the bay of Perose, in Bas Bretagne. Their approach excited alarm in the harbour, and they were fired at by the ships of war, but sending out their yawl, they soon made themselves known, and passed on peacefully to the land so anxiously desired. A vessel containing some of the servants of the

* Carte.

marquess, was lost; it also contained property belonging to the king, and it is thought that the captain, for the purpose of appropriating this, turned back to England, and was cast away near Scilly.

On the departure of the marquess, the lord Članricarde soon found the difficulties of the trust which he had undertaken. The rapid and sanguinary progress of Cromwell had been terminated by his return to England under the pressure of interests more anxious than the reduction of Ireland, and though the worst of his campaign had been in some important respects nearly decisive, yet the work was not half effected. The winter season was unfavourable to the warfare of the age and this more especially in Ireland, where the food and climate were found to disagree with the English soldiers, so much that a single campaign frequently disabled them for service; Ireton was therefore compelled to suspend his operations, and the greater part of Connaught and Munster remained untouched; and the Irish, though in no degree formidable in the field, were still far from abandoning the hope of successful hostility. There were in fact two violent parties to be subdued—the king's party now headed by the earl of Clanricarde, and the party of the clergy, who not willing to compromise the views on which they had till then been exclusively intent, were yet at least so far convinced of the real position in which they stood, that they warmly entertained the question of a treaty with the independents They saw, for they could not but see that the balance of chances was turned in favour of the parliament, and thought it wise to seize the occasion of a doubtful pause, to make the best terms they might with the stronger side. Ireton had the address to avail himself of their known state of feeling by sending agents to the assembly, to which he represented the desperation of their affairs and proposed a treaty. The proposal was at first rejected by the influence of Clanricarde and the feeling of his party, but revived by the influence of the clergy headed by Nicholas French the titular bishop of Ferns. But the remonstrances of Clanricarde, joined by the principal of the nobility and gentry, were too well grounded in the strong facts and admissions from which their opponents had no appeal, not to be for the time decisive; and the clerical party were in their turn compelled to give way to a boldness of declaration to which they were little accustomed, and yielded to the general sense of the assembly. Thus baffled, they still persevered in their steady and systematic resistance to the whole policy of Clanricarde, and by these methods of influence and active but private concert, they rendered his efforts powerless; more alert to embody resistance, and to effect their immediate objects by means of that pervading influence which was the result of their peculiar connexion with the people, than prudent in their calculation of final results, they still toiled for an ascendency which was passing from their grasp, through the medium of events without the circle of their contemplation; they still hoped to restore the confederacy of 1642, and did not relinquish their favourite, if not rather exclusive aim, the complete establishment of the papal power. Under this singular infatuation, a treaty opened with the duke of Lorraine in behalf of the king, was by their endeavours perverted into a proposal of a very different character, in so much that the earl of Clanricarde was compelled formally to disavow the conduct

of his own agents. This curious episode in the history of the disjointed times under our notice, cannot be here introduced in detail as it would lead to a very considerable digression from the main subject of our memoir. The duke of Lorraine had commenced a treaty with the king for a large loan: the security was not satisfactory, but in the course of the negotiation the private interests and the ambition of the duke were strongly introduced into the transaction: he had for sometime been endeavouring to obtain from the court of Rome a sentence to annul his first marriage, as he had married a second wife while the first was yet alive; the Irish agents also contrived to inflame his mind with the hope of acquiring the sovereignty of Ireland. Under these motives which are fully confirmed and explained by the language of articles proposed by himself, and to be found at length in many of our historians, the duke was easily prevailed upon to lend £5000, which was laid out in arms and ammunition, which arrived in the Bay of Galway during the meeting of the assembly and had material influence upon their determinations. The duke proposed to assume the protection of the country, on the condition of being invested with the entire authority and receiving absolute submission. To these proposals the assembly lent a willing ear. Scorning all communication with the lord-deputy, the bishops declared their consent, and pronounced the proposal of the duke to be the last resource of their nation. They were desired by the Abbè de St Katharine, the duke's envoy, to sign their consent, but they recoiled from a step so decisive; they could not at once depart so widely from established precedent, or commit themselves so far. The consent of the earl of Clanricarde, would, they were aware, be demanded by their followers, though not by themselves. But Clanricarde met these proposals with uncompromising firmness, and refused to admit the Abbè to an audience of leave. The Abbè was intimidated and offered a loan of £20,000 on the security of Limerick and Galway, and proposed to refer the question of the Protectorship to the mediation of a treaty at Brussels. On this Sir N. Plunket, and Geoffry Browne, were commissioned with lord Taafe, and authorized to treat with the duke according to such instructions as they should receive from the queen, the duke of York, and the marquess of Ormonde. But while the lord Taafe proceeded to Paris where the marquess of Ormonde was at the time residing, other proceedings were in their progress at Brussels. Thither the bishop of Ferns, with a company of the clergy who were of his party, and several agents from the Irish cities in their interest, had arrived, and were completely possessed of the duke's ear. By these, he was persuaded that it was in their power to put him into full possession of the kingdom of Ireland. Plunket and Browne were impressed by the strong language of the bishop, and were also persuaded that it was essentially expedient to secure the money at all risks. They were easily induced to disclaim the lord-deputy's commission and in the name of the Irish nation they signed a treaty with the duke, by which he was invested with royal authority in Ireland. A petition to the pope was at the same time, drawn up by the bishop of Ferns and

*Borlase, p. 351.

signed by Plunket; Browne refused his signature, and that of Taafe was signed for him in his absence and without his concurrence. A formal protest from lord Clanricarde reached the duke, and terminated these disgraceful transactions.

We shall not delay to describe the concurrent course of proceedings, relative to the same affair in Ireland. The Irish clergy acted in full conformity with the undertakings of their deputation in Brussels; they convened synods and made public declarations in favour of the duke of Lorraine; they prepared a sentence of excommunication against Clanricarde and their opponents, to be produced when it should be safe, and declared the revival of the original confederacy.

Ireton in the mean time was not neglectful of his post. And the military operations already related in the lives of Coote and lord Broghill took place; the lords Castlehaven and Clanricarde, with their ill-conditioned men and inadequate means, were after much strenuous but fruitless exertion of activity, courage, and skill, compelled to see the parliamentary generals gain post after post. Ireton having obtained possession of Limerick advanced to Galway, where he died of the plague and his place was efficiently filled by Ludlow, who conducted his duty with a decision and stern severity that spread universal dismay. A general treaty of submission in the name of the whole kingdom was proposed by the assembly of Leinster. In Galway, Clanricarde was prevailed on to propose a treaty of submission to Ludlow, but the time of treaty had stolen away while they had been engaged in the infatuation of intrigue, and the proposal was met by a sterr denial. The tone of authority was taken up, and the litigious and brawling synods and conventions were made to understand, that henceforth they were to regard themselves not as parties to equal negotiation, but as rebels and public disturbers placed upon their trial by the authority of the commonwealth of England. These intimations were indeed disregarded by the crowd of inflamed partisans, clerical and lay, who had been accustomed only to the effects of a war of treaties, declarations, and miserable intrigues; but Preston the governor of Galway who preserved his discretion and saw the danger in its true light, gave the not unimpressive warning of retreat by making his escape by sea, and the city was actually surrendered, while the synod were planning imaginary triumphs. In the midst of this adverse concurrence of circumstances, Clanricarde preserved his dignity and firmness; and having to the very latest moment maintained the cause of which he was the official leader, he submitted to the king's commands and treated with the parliamentary leaders.

Fleetwood was appointed to the government of Ireland; and the parliament, entering seriously on the consideration of the measures necessary for its final settlement, two acts were discussed; one for the confiscation of the estates of the rebels, another for the settlement of the claims of those to whom they were to be transferred. Some were to lose two-thirds and some the whole; among the latter was expressly named the marquess of Ormonde with lord Inchiquin, Bramhal bishop of Derry, and the earl of Roscommon. But the train of events which at this time so long involved the British Isles in the chaos of political disorganization reached its end, and the condition of the country utterly

exhausted by ten years of uninterrupted disorder, was relieved by the ascendancy of a single command. The rule of the most atrocious despotism that ever disgraced a throne, is a slight evil compared with the tyranny of popular factions; but the government of Oliver Cromwell, was, considering all circumstances, just, beneficent and statesmanlike; in Ireland it was tempered by the disinterested wisdom of his son Henry Cromwell.

"The

The marquess of Ormonde, having passed some months (with the interruption of one short visit to Paris,) with his family in Caen, was, summoned to Paris to give his counsel and assistance in the affairs of the duke of York, by which he was detained for a considerable time during the summer and autumn of 1652. The little money he had been enabled to apply to his own expences and those of his family was quite exhausted. He was compelled to board for a pistole per week in Paris and to appear on foot in the streets, which was not considered respectable among the Parisians. Under these depressing circumstances in which the intrinsic elevation of few characters can shield them from the slight of the world, the respect of which follows the outward reflection of prosperity-the spirit, sense, and dignity of the marquess, together with his well attested political virtue and wisdom, attracted universal reverence and regard. A curious anecdote related by Carte, may serve to illustrate the free and spirited indifference to pecuniary considerations, which is a well marked feature of the marquess's character, and at the same time exemplify the manners of the aristocracy of that period. We shall extract Carte's narrative. marquess himself was left in no small distress in Paris; but treated on account of his qualities and virtues with great respect by the French nobility. One of these having invited him to pass some days at his house in St Germain en Laye, there happened on this occasion an adventure, the relation whereof may perhaps gratify the reader's curiosity. The marquess of Ormonde, in compliance with an inconvenient English custom, at his coming away, left with the maitre d' Hotel ten pistoles to be distributed among the servants. It was all the money he had, nor did he know how to get credit for more when he reached Paris. As he was upon the road ruminating on this melancholy circumstance, and contriving how to raise a small supply for present use, he was surprised at being informed by his servant, that the nobleman, at whose house he had been, was behind him, driving furiously as if desirous to overtake him. The marquess had scarcely left St Germain when the distribution of the money he had given caused a great disturbance among the servants, who, exalting their own services and attendance, complained of the maitre d' Hotel's partiality. The nobleman hearing an unusual noise in his family, and upon inquiry into the matter, finding what it was, took the ten pistoles himself, and causing horses to be put to his chariot, made all the haste that was possible after the marquess of Ormonde. The marquess upon notice of his approach, got off his horse, as the other quitted his chariot, and advanced to embrace him with great affection and respect; but was strangely surprised to find a coldness in the nobleman which forbade all embraces, till he had received satisfaction on a point which had given him great offence. He asked the marquess if