that fhall invade the fame, or attempt to deprive yourfelf, or your lawful heirs and fucceffors, of any part thereof. And to the end, this our fincere protestation may more clearly appear, we further declare, that it is not our doctrine that subjects may be difcharged, abfolved, or freed from the obligation of performing their duty of true obedience and allegiance to their prince; much lefs may we allow of, or pass as tolerable, any doctrine that perniciously, and against the word of God, maintains, that any private subject may lawfully kill or murder the anointed of God, his prince; wherefore, pursuant to the deep apprehenfion we have of the abomination and fad confequences of its practice, we do engage ourselves to discover unto your majesty, or fome of your minifters, any attempt of that kind, rebellion or conspiracy against your majesty's perfon, crown, or royal authority, that comes to our knowledge, whereby fuch horrid evils may be prevented. Finally, as we hold the premises to be agreeable to good confcience, fo we religioufly fwear the due obfervance thereof to our útmoft, and we will preach and teach the fame to our respective flocks. In witness whereof we do hereunto subscribe the 15th day of June 1666." But the Duke of Ormond not only rejected the petition and remonftrance of this clergy, but also ordered them immediately to difperfe; and foon after banished them out of the kingdom; infomuch that when his grace quitted the government, there were not more than three catholic bishops remaining there, two whereof were bed-rid, and the third had abfconded." CHA P. b His grace expected their fubfcriptions to that very remonftrance which had been presented to the king; and would accept of no other. See Walfh's Remonft. f. 489. Although the non-fubfcribers alleged, and Walfh himself owns in feveral parts of his hiftory, that his remonftrance feems to affert all that is contained in the oath of fupremacy itself. CHA P. XIV. The Duke of Ormond's defign in permitting this meeting of the Irish clergy. PETER TALBOT, titular Archbishop of Dublin, and one of the most powerful opponents of Walfh's remonftrance, observed afterwards to that religious, that he had been all along made ufe of only as a tool and a dupe, in that business. "The ministry," fays he,' "for reasons best known to themselves, were willing to let you preach and prefs a formulary, which they forefaw would divide the catholics among themselves, difcredit their religion, and give the government the colour and advantage of excluding from their eftates, many meriting gentlemen, for not profeffing that allegiance, which learned men of their own religion maintained to be abfolutely neceffary in a faithful fubject." That there were sufficient grounds for fuch an obfervation, can be now proved by unquestionable authority; for about the end of the year 1666, after the before-mentioned fynod of the Irish clergy had been difperfed, Lord Orrery, taking advantage of that incident, wrote thus to Ormond: "I humbly offer to your grace, whether this may not be a fit feafon to make that fchifm, which you have been fowing among the popish clergy, publicly break out, fo as to fet them at open difference; as we may reap fome practicable advantage thereby." And when, fome years after, his grace's enemies had strangely accufed him of having countenanced and encouraged popery in Ireland, during his adminiftration; and inftanced his permiffion of this fynodical meeting of the Irifh clergy, as a proof of it; the duke himself frankly declared, 3 "that his aim in permitting that meeting, was to work a divifion among the Romish clergy; and that he believed 1 Friar Difciplined, p. 92. 2 State Let. vol. ii. lieved he had compaffed it, if he had not been removed; and if contrary councils and courfes had not been taken and held, by his fucceffors in the government; of whom," fays he, "fome were too indulgent to the whole body of papifts, and others not much acquainted with any of them; not confidering the advantages of the divifion defigned." 4 Some hopes, it appears, had been given (which his grace's before-mentioned letter to Walfh feemed to confirm), that the fubfcribers to the first remonstrance would be reftored to their eftates. But Archbishop Talbot calls upon Walfh, " to name but one, who had been the better for his fubfcription. A man,' fays he, "would think that my Lord of Iveagh's extraction, innocency, and merit, his breaking General Owen O'Nial's army, his raifing and lofing two or three regiments in the king's fervice, his venturing himself and his nearest relations in the towns befieged by Cromwell, his conftantly following his majefty's perfon and fortune in exile, needed no further remonftrance of his loyalty; but, however, that nothing might be objected against him, he figned yours; and yet is nothing the nearer his eftate. I know you pref fed my Lord Duke of Ormond very much in Sir Robert Talbot's behalf, faying it would be a great scandal if the only gentleman in Ireland, who never would reject the peace of 1646, and fuffered fo much on that account, were not restored to his eftate; and yet you fee he was, and his fon is, in the fame condition with the rest of your fubfcribers." a CHA P. + Friar Discipl. p. 87 In the year 1674, when Friar Difciplined was published. CHA P. XV. The king confeffes his obligation to make good the peace of the year 1648. HIS majesty had, at several times, acknowledged himself bound to fulfil his engagements to the Irish by the peace of 1648. We have already observed, that in a letter from Breda, in 1650, he defired the Marquis of Ormond,'" to affure them, that he would perform all grants and conceffions which he had either made or promised them by that peace; and which, as he had new inftances of their loyalty and affection to him, he should study rather to enlarge, than diminish or infringe in the least degree." In his fpeech to both houfes of parliament, July 1660, when a general act of oblivion was intended to be paffed, his majefty knowing that means had been used to exclude the Irish from the benefit of that act, told them, "that he hoped the Irish alone would not be left without the benefit of his mercy; that they had fhewn much affection to him abroad; and that he expected the parliament would have a care of his honour, and of what he had promised them." And in his declaration of the 30th of November following (which was intended to be the ground-work of the acts of fettlement), he again acknowledged this obligation, and faid, "he must always remember the great affection a confiderable part of the Irish nation expreffed to him, during the time of his being beyond feas; when, with all chearfulness and obedience, they received and submitted to his orders, though attended with inconvenience enough to themselves; which demeanour of theirs," adds he, "cannot but be thought very worthy of our protection, juftice, and favour." But ⚫ Cart. Coll. of Orm. Orig. Pap. Carte's Orm. vol. ii. f. 129. 2 Irish Statutes. But the commiffioners from Ireland, fearing that if the Irish were included in the general pardon, they would be of course restored to their eftates (of which, by the bounty of the late ufurpers, these commiffioners and their adherents, were then actually in poffeffion),3 petitioned both houses, that they might be excluded by an express clause, to be inferted in the act. And upon a motion being made in the house of peers, that this petition should be rejected, and the Irish included in the general indemnity, the Duke of Ormond oppofed it, alleging that, "his majesty had reserved the cognizance of that matter to himself;" though it was notorious, that his majesty in his fpeech to parliament, but a few days before, had acquainted them, "that he expected (in relation to his engagement with that people) they would have a care of his honour, and of the promise he had made them." Excluded howe VOL. II. Carte, ubi fupra. 4 H a • Sale and Settlement of Ireland. ver • What duplicity, when we reflect, that Ormond in his declaration, published on the conclufion of the peace of 1648, after having charged the English rebels with putting him under the neceffity of concluding it, has these words: " this we mention not as thereby in the leaft degree to invalidate any of the conceffions made unto this people; but on the contrary, to render them in every point the more facred and inviolable, by how much the neceffity on his majesty's part for the granting thereof is greater, and the fubmiflion on their parts, to his majesty's au.thority, in fuch his great neceffity, more opportune and seasonable." Cart. Orm. vol. ii. f. 52. I fhall have frequent occafion to quote this tract (Sale and Set. of Irel.). It was commonly called the Conventry-letter, because it was dated from Coventry. It was written by Mr. Nangle, attorney general in Ireland in 1685. The Earl of Clarendon, when lord lieutenant of Ireland, often mentions it in his letters to England, as a piece much taken notice of. "I have received (fays he, in one of them) a copy of a letter written by Mr. Nangle, to the Earl of Tyrconnel, from Coventry; 'tis a notable letter." State Lett. vol. i. p. 156. Elsewhere, he fays, "I gave my Lord Chief Justice Keating a copy of Mr. Nangle's letter, and defired his thoughts upon it." Ib. His excellency mentions Mr. Nangle in feveral of his letters, as "a perfon of undoubted abilities, and integrity in his profession. |