Major-general Monroe's ingratitude and perfidy were, in every respect, equal to his cruelty. This appeared by his be havior to the earl of Antrim, soon after his arrival in Ireland. "Mr. Archibald Stuart, chief agent to that earl, had raised,s in the beginning of the troubles, about eight hundred men, a great part of them the earl of Antrim's tenants and dependants, near Ballymenagh; and with them secured that part of the county of Antrim; notwithstanding which, this major-general, with two thousand five hundred Scots, marched about the middle of April, 1642, into that country, where he made a prey of above five thousand cows, burnt Glenarm, a town belonging to the earl of Antrim, and wasted that nobleman's lands. The earl came, in the latter end of April, to his seat at Dunluce, a strong castle by the sea side; and after his arrival there, found means to supply Colerain, which had been blocked up by the Irish, and was reduced to extremity, with an hundred beeves, sixty loads of corn, and other provisions, at his own expence. He had offered Monroe his service and assistance for securing the country; in the peace of which he was greatly interested, by reason of his large estate, the rents of which he could not otherwise receive. Monroe made him a visit at Dunluce, where the earl received him with many expressions of gladness, and had provided for him a great entertainment; but it was no sooner over, than the major-general made him a prisoner, seized the castle, and put the rest of * 3 Cart. Orm. vol. i. f. 188. one thousand two hundred pounds to secure it."-Borl. Hist. of the Irish Rebel. fol. 314. "Who, through the favor of a close night, escaped, though pursued, and at Finagh-bridge (their forces) met with a severe slaughter; Nugent's house of Calestown they burnt, and hanged him.”—Borl. Hist. of the Irish Rebel. fol. 204. He afterwards escaped " into Flanders, and from thence came to the prince, then in the west; he came, with two good frigates into the port of Falmouth, and offered his service to his royal highness; and having in his frigates a quantity of arms and some ammunition, which he had procured in Flanders for the service of Ireland, most of the arms and ammunition were employed, with his consent, for the supply of the troops and garrisons in Cornwall; and the prince made use of one of the frigates to transport his person into Sicilly, and from thence to Jersey; without which convenience, his highness had been exposed to great difficulties, the earl's houses into the hands of the marquis of Argyle's men." The continuation of the before-mentioned outrages of the Scots in Ulster, in breach of the cessation, caused lord Digby to write to the marquis of Ormond, in July 1644, "that' the growing disorders of the kingdom imported a greater necessity of peace with the Irish, and of an union against those traitors of the covenant, so much more dangerous than any other, as they were firmly linked with the rebels in England." CHAP. X. The revolt of lord Inchiquin. ABOUT this time died sir William St. Leger, lord president of Munster; and the king having appointed the earl of Portland to succeed him in that charge,' lord Inchiquin, who was married to sir William's daughter, and had solicited and expected that presidentship after his father-in-law's decease, was now so much incensed by the disappointment, that he was easily persuaded by lord Broghill,* to reject the cessation, and to receive the English parliament's commission for the presidentship of Munster, in opposition to the king's appointment. "In this capacity,3 he performed many considerable services for that parliament, taking great store of plunder from the Irish, and not sparing," says Ludlow," his own kindred; but if he found them faulty, hanging them up without distinction." But one of his most memorable services on this occasion, was his barbarous exploit at Cashel ; where, having brought together an army, and hearing that many priests and gentry 6 Cart. Orm. vol. iii. fol. 335. 2 Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. 1 Id. ib. vol. i. fol. 512, 4 Id. ib. Castlehaven's Memoirs. and could hardly have escaped the hands of his enemies.”—Clar. Life, vol. ii. p. 247. * Inchiquin " by the help of the lord Broghill, son to the earl of Cork, possessed himself of Youghal, Kinsale and Cork, whereof two are haventowns, all considerable in Munster."-Leyburne's Memoirs, Preface, p. xxviii, thereabouts had retired with their goods into the church of that city, he stormed it, and put three thousand of them to the sword, taking the priests even from under the altar."* At the same time that he himself deserted the king's service,s he persuaded his brother, lieutenant-colonel Henry O'Brien, to deliver up Wareham to the English parliament, and to come away, with his whole regiment to Ireland. This lieutenantcolonel was afterwards taken prisoner by the confederates, and in great danger of an unhappy end, in revenge for a Roman catholic dean, whom his brother had lately caused to be hanged, and for his own crime in delivering Wareham to the parliament. But lord Castlehaven, alleging " that for this very reason he ought, for a testimony of their own loyalty, and of their detestation of his breach of trust, to be sent as a present to the king, to be punished as his majesty should see fit; he was saved from present execution, and afterwards exchanged," Though Inchiquin's disappointment was the real cause of his defection, yet he pretended another, and more extraordinary reason for it to the marquis of Ormond, viz. " an informa tion? he had received from the English women, of a common talk of some of the Irish, that they designed to seize Cork," and upon this frivolous pretence, he drove all the magistrates. and catholic inhabitants out of that city; as also out of Youghal and Kinsale," allowing them to take no more of their goods with them, than what they could carry on their backs,s seizing all the provisions and effects in their houses." Lord Digby, by his majesty's command, recommended these distressed peo દ્વંદ્વ "Near twenty priests were then slaughtered in that cathedral.”— Carte's Orm, vol. ii, fol. 9. say. Mr. Carte relates that affair thus, but upon what authority he does not "Inchiquin, before he attacked the cathedral, offered the inhabitants (of Cashel who retired into it) and the garrison, leave to depart, upon condition they advanced him three thousand pounds, and a month's pay for his army. The proposal was rejected, and the place being taken by storm, a prodigious booty was found there, and great slaughter made of the garrison and citizens, before Inchiquin entered the cathedral and gave orders that none should be put to death." Id. ib.-But Mr. Carte does not pretend to account, why Inchiquin did not enter the cathedral, and give these orders until all the citizens and garrison were put to death. ple to the marquis of Ormond's care. "The king," says he,' " is very sensible of their sad condition, and will not soon forget the inhumanity of that lord." 10 But Inchiquin, in order to engage his officers and soldiers in the same measures he had embraced himself, caused an oath to be administered to them, by which they obliged themselves to endeavor the extirpation of popery, to carry on the war against the Irish, notwithstanding any command, proclamation, or agreement to the contrary; and to submit to no peace or conditions with them, but by consent and allowance of king and parliament. This was then a favorite mode of expression with those who fought, in the king's name, against his person. CHAP. XI. The confederates send supplies to the king. HOW much soever the king has been censuredt, for employing his Irish catholic subjects against his English and Scottish rebels (even by those who had actually reduced him to that 10 Belling's MSS. 9 Ib. vol. iii. fol. 953. • The lord Inchiquin," says Barlase," who being easily wrought on to agree to the cessation, carried over many of his Munster forces to the king, who, in memory of his service, bestowed on him a noble wardship, and would have made him an earl, but the presidency of Munster, predisposed of to the earl of Portland, being his aim, he returns again into Ireland." Irish Rebel. fol. 198.-Inchiquin, Broghill, and their officers, wrote different letters to the king and both houses of parliament against the cessation; and desiring that the Irish might be again proclaimed rebels.-Id. ib. "It was lord Inchiquin above-mentioned, that first moved the king to send for the forces of Ireland into England."-Borl. Hist. of the Irish Rebel. fol. 203. "Tis true, that by the act of adventurers, 17 Carol. "the king was restrained from making any peace or cessation with the Irish;" but by the same act, the money that was thereby raised was to be no otherwise employed but towards suppressing the rebellion in Ireland: and by the parliament's failure as to this condition (for as we have already seen, they employed it in their war against his majesty), they left the king free as to the other condition, if necessity should oblige them to overlook it, as it certainly did. “Great sums of money," says Clarendon on this occasion, "were necessity), his majesty's good opinion of their courage and fide. lity, was certainly well-grounded. Lord Byron, in a letter from Chester to the marquis of Ormond, January 30th, 1643, requir ing supplies from Ireland, "wished they were rather Irish than English; for that the English he had already were very mutinous; and being," says he, "for the most part this countrymen are so poisoned by the ill-affected people here, that they grow very cold in this service." And indeed that this preference in favor of the Irish, was just and reasonable, appears from hence, that such of the English protestant forces as were commanded over on that duty, "went with such reluctance," says Borlase, "as the sharpest proclamations, of which there were several, hardly restrained them from flying their colors, both before and after their arrival in England."* But with how much spirit and alacrity the Irish crowded into that service, and what wonders they performed in it, shall be presently related from unquestionable authority. But there now arose a new and more substantial impediment to the transmission of these supplies by the confederates, "from the Irish coasts being infested by swarms of rebel ships,"† whose commanders shewed no mercy to such of the royal party as had the misfortune to fall into their hands. For "of one hundred 2 Hist. of the Irish Rebel. fol. 177. 3 Carte's Ormond, vol. i. 1 Carte, Leland. &c. daily brought in, and preparations and provisions, and new levies of men were made for Ireland. But the rebellion in England being shortly after fomented by the parliament, they applied very much of that money brought in by the adventurers, and many of the troops which had been raised for that service, immedietely against the king. And by this means Ireland was unsupplied, and the rebellion spread and prospered with little opposition for some time.-Clar. Life, vol. ii. p. 113-14, * "They deserted to sir Thomas Fairfax, notwithstanding their solemn oath; and numbers of them were persuaded to take arms for the parliament."-Lel. Hist. of Irel. vol. iii. p. 216. †The marquis of Ormond himself, in a letter to the archbishop of York, May 27th, 1644, mentions these two great impediments to the transmission of the Irish supplies. "In addition to other difficulties," says he, "we are here threatened with an invasion of the Scots out of the north, who have treacherously surprised Belfast, and attempted other English garrisons; so that until these seas be cleared, and the danger of the Scots over, Anglesey, can expect little indeed, or no scccour out of Ireland,”—Carte's Collec. of Orig. Papers, vol. i. p. 48. |