and the levying of an army was deferred till the issue of their journey was known. Whilst they were waiting for a safe conduct from England, (for they would not venture their persons there without one,) two letters came in the beginning of September from the earl of Lauderdale; the first of which gave them advice, that the commander of the English fleet had offered him to declare for the Scots, and the English presbyterians, with twenty-two men of war, if they would victual his ships; which, if their kingdom was unable to do, might yet be done by the help of France. In the other, the earl wrote word that the in-15 dependents were willing to accommodate matters with the Scots; that he was actually treating with one of the most considerable persons of the English army for that purpose, and was assured by him, that in case Scotland would agree with the independents in the single point of abandoning their king, they should very easily agree with one another in every thing else; that Ashburnham was the only man who hindered the king from striking in with the independents; that at any rate W. Murray should be sent away to be about the king, who did not give them satisfactory answers, and who, he foresaw, would be absolutely ruined, if he believed the independents. Sir H. Vane the younger was the man who made the aforesaid proposal in the name of the independents to Lauderdale.

24

M. de Montrevil, the French envoy, was entirely persuaded that the only design of the Scots was to make up with the independents, and that the true reason of their courting the king so much was, to get the better bargain from that party. But it was an age of jealousies, and they did not know how to trust the independents. These last had by a vote established the presbyterian government in England for a limited time, and with liberty of conscience to nonconformists; but the very manner of that establishment raised violent clamours in Scotland.

They had made an apology for an affront lately offered by the parliament to Lauderdale, but it had more the air of a reproach than an excuse. These things increased their distrust, but a new order of the parliament for the Scots to quit Ulster immediately put them out of all patience; and in their resentment they sent five thousand pounds to Monroe to clothe his forces, he engaging with that supply to maintain his footing for another year in Ireland. Thus stood matters in Scotland, when Lanerick at the latter end of September set out for London, and was followed in a day or two by the earls of Loudon and Calender, the last of which was invited by the king's own letters to come to him, as a person in whom he much confided, though he was secretly united to the Hamilton party. Upon their coming to London, and the king's resolving to close with the Scots' offers, the marquis of Ormond was appointed to transact with them; and there was laid the foundation of that engagement, which was openly declared in the year following, and in which the Scots pretended fully to assert and retrieve his majesty's rights and authority.

25 The king's escape from the Isle of Wight, the uncertainty of his condition, and especially his not consenting to all the unreasonable propositions the Scots made, caused some delay in settling the measures to be observed by all parties for preventing the traitorous designs of the army, which were now manifest to all the world. But all things being at last adjusted, except the king's signing to those conditions, which the Scotch commissioners pretended to be necessary to enable them to engage the kingdom, and they being gone to the Isle of Wight to obtain it, the marquis of Ormond left London on Christmas-day, nine days before the vote passed of non-addresses to the king. Robert Lesly was despatched at the same time to Scotland to give an account of the agreement made with the king, and to prepare matters for the per

formance of the engagement. The marquis went to Acton, about ten miles from Bristol, a place convenient for the correspondence which he had now entered into with lord Inchiquin, for the better performance of the part assigned him in Ireland. He stayed there till an order was sent him from the committee of Derby-houses, dated Feb. 15, and requiring him to send them in writing an engagement upon his honour, that he would not during his stay in England do any thing that should be of disservice to the parliament. He had liberty by his articles to stay twelve months in England, and at the end thereof to transport 16 himself into parts beyond the seas, if in the mean time he made no composition for his estate with the parliament. This was what he never intended to do; and the reason of his stay thus long was his expectation of getting the three thousand five hundred pounds remaining of the money to be paid him for his disbursements in Ireland. He had solicited that affair in London, with a great charge in attendance, till he was banished thence by an ordinance enjoining all persons who had served the king to leave that city. He had waited afterwards in the country for the money, that he might satisfy his creditors, who were very importunate with him for payment. He had indeed, by his capitulation, protection from them for six months, but that time being on the point of expiring, and very little hopes left of speedy payment, it was high time for him to decamp, and steal off as privately as he could for fear of an arrest. These circumstances served for excuses, but were not the true reasons of his departure. He did not care to be served with the order above mentioned; there was as yet no charge of disservice against him, but he found the parliament was grown jealous of him, and wanted a pretext to seize his person. He had notice likewise given him, that a warrant was actually issued out for that purpose, though in breach of the articles. s W. 21, 16 and 17.

Upon this advertisement he quitted Acton, and crossing the country to Hastings in Sussex, he took shipping for France, and landed happily at Dieppe in Normandy. From thence he went in the beginning of March to Paris, there to wait upon the queen and prince, and assist with his advice in the present conjuncture of affairs, when matters of the greatest consequence, the most intricate nature, and the most embroiled circumstances, were under their consideration, and resolutions to be taken therein for his majesty's service.

26 The earl of Glamorgan had come to Paris a few months before him, recommended by the nuncio Rinuccini to cardinal Mazarine, and to the pope's nuncio in that place, on account of his attachment to the holy see, though unfortunate in all his undertakings, and not endued with that prudence which was necessary in the post he desired. His business there was to solicit the queen to make him governor of Ireland; but he met with so ill a reception at court, that he soon despaired of succeeding. His lady, to (whom the marquis of Ormond had once made his addresses, (before he had hopes of marrying his cousin and uniting the estate of his family,) resented the neglect shewed of her lord, and imputed it, as well as his imprisonment at Dublin, to the influence and power of the marquis. She carried her resentment so far, that when he waited upon her after his arrival at Paris, and offered to salute her, she turned away her face with great disdain. The marquis thereupon made her a reverence, and with great presence of mind said, " Really, madam, this would have troubled me eighteen years ago;" and then went to the next, the company present being of his acquaintance, and much pleased with what he had said.

27

66

Soon after the marquis of Ormond's arrival, some agents deputed by the general assembly, which met on Nov. 12 before, arrived from Ireland at Paris. The nation" had t Nuncio's Memoirs, fol. 1818. Ireland, III. 100. u V. 319.

suffered so much from the horrible depredations of the Ulster forces, and the measures of the clergy, that they generally wished for peace, to put an end to their present miseries, and their apprehension of greater, particularly of a famine. Mr. Darcy and other considerable persons had resolved to meddle no more in public affairs, but at lord Muskery's instance they resolved to make one push more to save the nation, before they quitted it, from ruin; which only could be done by getting a majority in that assembly. They exerted themselves so strenuously, that 17 they succeeded in their design, notwithstanding all the disadvantages they were under through the power of a council composed for the most part of the nuncio's creatures, and generally observant of his directions. In one point indeed they had lately proceeded contrary to his will, but the case was too odious to allow them to act otherwise.

28 A scandalous and treasonable book, entitled, Disputatio Apologetica, de Jure Regni Hiberniæ pro Catholicis Hibernis adversus Hæreticos Anglos, had been lately published, wrote by an Irish Jesuit in Portugal, and there printed. The author, whose name was Constantine, or Cornelius Mahony, a Munster man, called in his order Cornelius a Sancto Patricio, endeavoured in it to persuade his countrymen, that the kings of England never had any right to Ireland; that supposing they once had, they had forfeited it by turning heretics, and not observing the conditions of pope Adrian's grant; that the old Irish natives might by force of arms recover the lands and goods taken from their ancestors upon the conquest by usurpers of English or other foreign extraction; that they should kill, not only all the protestants, but all the Roman catholics in Ireland that stood for the crown of England, choose an Irish native for their king, and throw

v Nuncio's Memoirs, fol. 1820. P. W.'s Remonstrance, p. 667 and 737.