war and polotics in ireland 1649 - 1730

WAR AND POLITICS IN IRELAND

1649 - 1730

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WAR AND POLITICS

IN IRELAND

1649 - 1730

J.G.SIMMS

EDITED BY

D.W.HAYTON AND GERARD O'BRIEN

THE HAMBLEDON PRESSLONDON AND RONCEVERTE

Published by The Hambledon Press, 1986

35 Gloucester Avenue, London NW1 7AX (U.K.)

309 Greenbrier Avenue, RonceverteWest Virginia 24970 (U.S.A.)

ISBN 0 907628 72 9

©The Estate of the late J.G. Simms 1986

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Simms, J.G.War and politics in Ireland, 1649-1730.1. Ireland - History - 1649-1730.I. TitleII. Hayton, David III. O'Brien, Gerard941.506 DA940

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Simms, J.G (John Gerald), 1904-1979.War and politics in Ireland, 1649-1730.

"Select bibliography of J.G. Simms": pp. xv-xxiIncludes index.1. Ireland - History - 1649-1775 - Addresses,essays, lectures.2. Simms, J.G. (John Gerald), 1904-1979.I. Hayton, David, 1949- II. O'Brien, Gerard.III. Title.DA944.4.S56 1986 941.506 85-31686

Printed and bound in Great Britain byWBC (Printers), Bristol and WBC (Bookbinders), Maesteg

CONTENTS

AcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Historical Writings of J.G. Simms (1904-79)Select Bibliography of J.G. Simms

1 Cromwell at Drogheda, 16492 Cromwell's Siege of Waterford, 16493 Hugh Dubh O'Neill's Defence of Limerick, 1650-16514 John Toland (1670-1722), a Donegal Heretic5 Dublin in 16856 The Jacobite Parliament of 16897 Schomberg at Dundalk8 Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne9 Marlborough's Siege of Cork, 169010 A Jacobite Colonel: Lord Sarsfield of Kilmallock11 County Donegal in the Jacobite War, 1689-9112 Kilkenny in the Jacobite War, 1689-9113 County Louth and the Jacobite War14 Sligo in the Jacobite War, 1689-9115 Williamite Peace Tactics, 1690-116 The Treaty of Limerick17 Irish Catholics and the Parliamentary Franchise, 1692-

172818 The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 (C. Will. Ill, c. I)19 The Case of Ireland Stated20 The Making of a Penal Law (2 Anne, c.6), 1703-421 The Irish Parliament of 171322 Connacht in the Eighteenth Century23 County Sligo in the Eighteenth CenturyIndex

vii

ix

XV

1

11

21

31

49

65

91

105

117

129

135

149

161169

181

203

225

235

251

263

277

289

307

317

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For permission to reprint the papers in this collection, encouragementin the task, and significant material help, we are very grateful to thefamily of the late Gerald Simms, and especially his daughter, Mrs LisaShields. For advice, assistance in procuring rare items, and support inthe preparation of the volume, we should also like to thank Dr D. G.Cuinnea, Mr R. J. Hunter, Mr Harman Murtagh, Jim and UnaO'Donovan, Brenda O'Hanrahan, Dr Carole Rawcliffe, Nick Sanquestand Dr W. E. Vaughan. The articles are reprinted by kind permissionof the original publishers: the County Donegal Historical Society (11),the County Louth Historical and Archaeological Society (13), theDublin Historical Association (6,16), Gill andMacmillanLtd. (19), theIrish Committee of Historical Sciences (21), the Irish Historical Societyand Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies (4, 5,15,17,18, 20, 22),the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (12), the Military History Societyof Ireland (1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9,10,14), and the Royal Society of Antiquariesof Ireland (23).

INTRODUCTION: THE HISTORICAL WRITING OF

J.G. SIMMS (1904-79)

'Irish history', wrote one of its foremost recent practitioners, 'has beenrevolutionized in the last generation.'* Indeed, it has become almost acommonplace among Irish historians to talk of a mid-twentiethcentury 'historiographical revolution', characterized by an efflor-escence of learned societies and serial publications of one kind oranother, and centred on Trinity College, Dublin and the figure of thelate T. W. Moody, guiding hand behind many major projects, from thejournal Irish Historical Studies, founded in 1938, to the multi-volume, co-operative New History of Ireland, which the Clarendon Press beganpublishing for the Royal Irish Academy in 1976.2 'A harvesting of thebest contemporary scholarship', the New History stands as a landmarkin the progress of the 'historiographical revolution', almost as amonument to the pioneers.3 One of their signal achievements, amplyillustrated in the New History, was the removal of much of theemotionalism and partisanship from the study o{ Irish history, so thathitherto highly combustible issues could be dealt with dispassionately,and, as far as humanly possible, objectively. Nowhere are these virtuesbetter demonstrated than in the writings of one of the most prolific ofthis generation, J. G. Simms. In a stream of books and papers from theearly 1950s until his death in 1979, Simms tackled some of the mostvexed and vexing questions in all Irish history, the wars, confiscations,persecutions and politics of the later seventeenth century. His was apeculiarly dangerous minefield: Cromwell's sieges, the 'GloriousRevolution' and its aftermath, the later passage of the infamous 'penallaws' against Catholics, all episodes close to the heart of modern myth-makers, and yet all described by Simms with fairness and exemplaryclarity.

1 J. G. Simms, 'The Historical Work of T. W. Moody', Ireland under the Union:Varieties of Tension. Essays in Honour ofT. W. Moody, eds. F. S. L. Lyons and R. A. J.Hawkins (Oxford, 1980), p. 321.

2 See, for example, F. S. L. Lyons, 'T.W.M.', Ireland under the Union, eds. Lyons andHawkins, p. 4 et seq.; R. F. Foster, 'History and the Irish Question', Transactions of theRoyal Historical Society, 5th ser., XXXIII (1983), 188.

3 A New History of Ireland, eds. T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin, F. J. Byrne and W. E.Vaughan (9 vols., Oxford, 1976-), III, p. v.

x IntroductionGerald Simms was descended from Ulster Plantation stock, the

eldest of three sons of a County Donegal solicitor (a brother, George,was to become Church of Ireland primate). Educated at Winchesterand New College, Oxford, where he secured a double first, he had thedistinction of enjoying two quite separate careers, first in the IndianCivil Service, and then, after Indian independence, back in Ireland asan academic historian. A Ph.D. thesis at Trinity, withT. W. Moody assupervisor, was followed by election as a fellow of the college, wherehe stayed until his retirement. Simms became a pillar of the scholarlyestablishment in Ireland, a member of the Royal Irish Academy,Librarian of Archbishop Marsh's Library in Dublin, President of theIrish Historical Society, active in various other local and nationalsocieties and a collaborator with Moody in several ventures, not least asa substantial contributor to the New History. He wrote extensively, andalways, it must be said, for Irish periodicals and series, or for Irishpublishers. This reflected, perhaps, a kind of insularity, and to a certaindegree deprived him of the reputation outside Ireland that his qualitiesas a historian merited. But his ancestry, English education and imperialexperience were still an essential part of the historian, enabling him totreat the conflicting factions of his chosen period with unusualdetachment, understanding in turn the points of view of Williamite andJacobite, Irishman, Anglo-Irishman and Englishman.

Simms's first book, published in 1956, was in effect his Ph.D. thesis,The Williamite Confiscation in Ireland 1690-1703, narrating the course ofthe land settlement that followed the final defeat of the Stuart cause inIreland and evaluating its results. He had prepared the way for thismonograph with two papers in Irish Historical Studies, 'Land Owned byCatholics in 1688', setting out the status quo, and 'The Original Draft ofthe Civil Articles of Limerick, 1691', which helped to elucidate acrucial stage in the peace-making process. G. N. Clark, reviewing TheWilliamite Confiscation . . ., noted that until Simms had begun to publishhis findings 'every aspect of the history of Irish landownership beforeand after the war of 1689-91 was very imperfectly known. Now thathe has completed his work, all previous accounts of it are superseded'.4Almost equally impressed was another English historian, J. P. Kenyon:'an extremely satisfying piece of detailed research, whose soberconclusions must carry conviction. '5 These conclusions, about the scaleof the redistribution of lands after 1690, presented as much smaller thanin the Cromwellian and Restoration land settlements; and about theconduct of King William, his ministers and generals, whose honourwas in some way rehabilitated, may not have been startling, but theywere significant. What is particularly impressive about the book is the

4 Irish Historical Studies, XI (1958-9), 55-8.5 English Historical Review, LXXII (1957), 373-4.

Introduction xiskill with which the author, much in the manner of a senior civilservant drawing up a brief, masters complex historical processes anda mass of material to produce his pellucid and authoritative account.There was, too, something about the subject of landownership itselfthat fascinated Simms, and not just its traditional prominence in Irishhistory. He had in fact already produced an article on the Civil Surveyof the 1650s, and later was to return to tackle land questions in CountiesLouth and Meath, and to have a preliminary look at the UlsterPlantation in his own county, Donegal.

A subject of even greater interest, to judge simply by the number ofwords Simms expended on it, was military history. An officer of theMilitary History Society of Ireland, in which he served as Vice-President and as a member of the editorial committee, he appearedfrequently in the columns of the society's journal, the Irish Sword.Military matters, whether narratives of engagements or assessments ofgenerals, gave him the chance to solve specific problems, and tellcomplicated stories clearly, for which he had a flair. Although therewere occasional forays into the Cromwellian period, it soon becameobvious that the thrust of his major offensive in the decade or so thatfollowed the publication of The Williamite Confiscation . . . was towardsa new history of the war between James II and William III, a naturaldevelopment indeed from his earlier work. Pamphlets on the Treaty ofLimerick (reprinted below, no. 16) and the siege of Derry pointed theway, as did a nost of other papers, five of which, important in their ownrignt and not subsumed into publications of larger scope, are includedin this collection: the story of the travails of the Williamite generalSchomberg at Dundalk in 1689 (no. 7); an analysis of the evidence aboutthe most famous Irish battle of them all, 'Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne'(no. 8); an account of one of the first major exploits of the great Dukeof Marlborough, his siege of Cork in 1690 (no. 9); an examinationof'Williamite Peace Tactics' (no. 15); and a vignette of the Jacobiteofficer Dominick Sarsfield (no. 10). The final push came in 1969 withthe appearance of Jacobite Ireland 1685-91, the intention of which was to'trace the course of events in Ireland from the accession of James II tothe treaty of Limerick'.6 In this objective it succeeded triumphantly,earning the same plaudits for thoroughness, objectivity and clarity thathad garlanded the first book. One reviewer praised Simms's 'unerringsureness of touch', and found in his narrative the cardinal virtues of thegenre: it was 'well proportioned, comprehensive and dramatic'.7

There was more to the events of 1685-91 in Ireland, and more toSimms's rendition of them, than a catalogue of military preparationsand engagements. Otherwise enthusiastic reviewers might, not

7 J.L . McCracken, in Eng. Hist. Rev., LVI (1971), 848.6 J . G S i m m s , J a c o b i t e I r e l a n d 1 6 8 5 - 9 1 ( L o n d o n , 1 9 6 9 ) , p . v .

xii Introduction

unjustly, carp at the brevity with which the religious background andthe prevailing economic and social conditions in later seventeenth-century Ireland were sketched in. But when it came to politics JacobiteIreland did make a sustained attempt to encompass this vital extradimension. The accounts of James II 's changing policies in Ireland priorto 1688, and of the proceedings of his Catholic Parliament there in 1689,already discussed oy Simms at some length in a pamphlet reprintedbelow (no. 6), display the same surefootedness as the militarynarratives. This was a sphere of interest that Simms was to explorefurther, most notably in his chapters of the New History, which takentogether form an accurate and elegant account of events in Irelandfrom the Restoration to the Hanoverian Succession. The presentvolume includes three examples of papers narrating political develop-ments: a study of the short-lived and turbulent Irish Parliament of 1713(no. 21); and two investigations into the passage of individual penallaws, the Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 (no. 18) and the Popery Actof 1704 (no. 20). Here Simms, as in other areas, was breaking newground, particularly in his examination of the processes by whichlegislation against Catholics emerged and was modified in the course ofa peculiarly complex and long-drawn-out drafting procedure. Tothose historians who are inclined to treat the imposition of the penalcode in general terms, and too simplistically, happy to assume thatParliaments spoke with one voice, and that the final shape of a measurecorresponded to the intentions of its makers, Simms's articles are areminder that there were many parties involved, with different aims,and that legislation was and is nearly always the outcome of a series ofmanoeuvres and compromises. These political studies have theirweaknesses: they are not profoundly versed in the sophisticatedconfigurations o( late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-centuryEnglish politics, and do not always bring out to the full the reciprocalinfluence o£ factionalism in Dublin and at Westminster. But they are ofconsiderable value as important investigations into what even now isstill largely uncharted territory.

Another major historiographical region into which Simms madesome pioneering journeys was that of Irish local history. He had aparticular pride in 'the petite patrie of his native county', writingfrequently for the Donegal Annual and serving as President of theCounty Donegal Historical Society in its silver jubilee year.9 Questionsof landownership naturally threw up interesting local case-studies, andhis work on the Jacobite war of 1689-91 yielded a number of minorpieces on the impact of the conflict on the life of the provinces, four ofwhich are reprinted here (nos. 11-14). Perhaps the most adventurousof these voyages into the localities were his efforts to describe a

8 Ibid.9 Donegal Annual, X (1971), 1-2.

Introduction x n iparticular city, county or province at a point or in a period of itshistory. His surveys or'Dublin in 1685' (no. 5) and of County Sligo andConnacht in the eighteenth century (nos. 22-3), summarize thecharacteristics of each in a typically lucid fashion. While a newgeneration of economic and social historians is digging deeper into thesubsoil, so to speak, of Irish local history in his period,10 Simms's articlesrepresent the vital early spadework, and have not yet been supersededfor the localities that they cover.

Simms's last book, published posthumously, was a life of the Dublinsavant and political thinker William Molyneux, whose Case of Ireland. . . Stated (1698) exercised a major influence on the Protestant'patriots' of the later eighteenth century, the architects of the proto-Home Rule 'Constitution of 1782'. His interest in Molyneux, and inJonathan Swift (reflected in several articles) led Simms to consider thecurious phenomenon of Anglo-Irish political patriotism, and to makean important contribution to the debate about its nature. Were therepresentatives of the Protestant Ascendancy genuine nationalists, orhypocrites who played at patriotism until their supremacy wasthreatened by the Catholics they had excluded from political life, andwho then scuttled back to England and Union for protection? Theinterpretation advanced by Simms in books and articles (one of which isprinted below, no. 19) placed Molyneux and his disciples in a traditionof Anglophone colonial theorists whose patriotism, based primarily ona recognition of separate economic interests from those of the mothercountry, was contained 'within an imperial framework'. An eight-eenth-century parallel, though not an exact one, was to be found incolonial America, and in a short monograph on the Case Simmsdemonstrated, amongst other things, Molyneux's impact on theFounding Fathers.11 In fact, the notion of 'Colonial Nationalism', asSimms termed it, was most closely applicable to the movementstowards 'nationalism' in the British dominions in the later nineteenthcentury. The phrase had been coined by the Chamberlainite politicaljournalist Richard Jebb in an article in the Empire Review in 1902, anddeveloped in a number of books, no doubt familiar to a servant of thetwentieth-century Raj.12 Its use to define the ideology or ideologies ofeighteenth-century Irish Protestants has not met with universal

10 See for example, D. J. Dickson, 'An Economic History of the Cork Region in theEighteenth Century' (Trinity College, Dublin, Ph.D. thesis, 1977); W. H. Crawford,'Ulster Economy and Society in the Eighteenth Century' (Queen's University,Belfast, Ph.D. thesis, 1983).

11 Colonial Nationalism 1698-1776 . . . (Cork, 1976); see esp. p. 9.12 See in particular, R. Jebb, Studies in Colonial Nationalism (London, 1905); and in

general, forjebb's 'imperialist-federalist'writings, J. D. B. Miller, Richardjebb and theProblem of Empire (University of London Institute of Commonwealth Studies,Commonwealth Papers, III, 1956).

xiv Introductionapproval,13 but the idea has nevertheless proved fruitful: a recentdoctoral thesis on Anglo-Irish political thought in the period from theRevolution to the mid-1720s incorporates 'Colonial Nationalism'into its title.14

In any discussion of Gerald Simms's historical writing two mainthemes stand out: first, that in many of the thorniest patches of Irishhistory he cut away the tangled undergrowth so that others, not leastother historians, might see clearly; secondly, that he accomplishedthese tasks to the highest level of professional craftsmanship. In someareas, in his work on landownership or on military history, heestablished the definitive text; in others, in political narrative and inthe study of Anglo-Irish political theory, he left foundations for othersto build on. His lasting achievements were summarized by onereviewer: 'Historical fashions change, and more superficial or modishstudies may be cried up, but as time passes the enduring virtues of alucid style, logical exposition and secure documentation will againenjoy their proper recognition.'15

13 D. G. Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (London, 1982), pp. 106-8, offers cogentcriticism.

14 By Dr Isolde Victory (Trinity College, Dublin, Ph.D. thesis, 1985).« T. C. Barnard, in Ir. Hist. Stud., XXIV (1984), 104.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF J.G. SIMMS

The following bibliography is based on that of Brenda O'Hanrahan,Donegal Authors: A Bibliography (Blackrock, Co. Dublin, 1982), pp.242-6. Permission to make use of this work is gratefully acknowl-edged. We have excluded such items as book reviews and replies toqueries. Papers and pamphlets reprinted in this volume are markedwith an asterisk.

BOOKS

Separate works:

The Williamite Confiscation in Ireland 1690-1703. (Studies in Irish History,VII.) London: Faber and Faber. 1956. (Reprinted by Greenwood Press,Connecticut, 1976.) 207 pp.

*The Treaty of Limerick. (Irish History Series, 2.) Dundalk: DublinHistorical Association. 1961. 24 pp.

*The Jacobite Parliament of 1689. (Irish History Series, 6.) Dundalk:Dublin Historical Association. 1966. 28 pp.

The Siege of Deny. Dublin: A.P.C.K. 1966. 33 pp.

Jacobite Ireland 1685-91. (Studies in Irish History, 2nd series, V.)London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1969. xii, 298 pp.

Colonial Nationalism 1698-1776: Molyneux's 'The Case of Ireland . . .Stated'. (Irish Life and Culture, Special Series.) Cork: Mercier Press forthe Cultural Relations Committee of Ireland 1976. 77 pp.

Sandford Church, 1826-1976. Dublin: Sandford Parish Select Vestry.1976. 12 pp.

xvi Select Bibliography of ]. G. SimmsWilliam Molyneux of Dublin 1656-1698. [Edited by P. H. Kelly.]Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 1982. 176 pp.

Editions:

(With K. Danaher) The Danish Force in Ireland 1690-1691. Dublin: IrishManuscripts Commission. 1962. 169 pp.

(With T. W. Moody) The Bishopric of Deny and the Irish Society of London,1602-1705. 2 volumes. Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission. VolumeI: 1602-70. 1968, 430 pp. Volume II: 1670-1705. 1983. xix,580 pp.

Contributions:

'The Restoration and the Jacobite War (1660-91)'(pp. 204-16,347), inThe Course of Irish History, eds. T. W. Moody and F. X. Martin (Cork,Mercier Press, 1967; revised edn. 1984).

'Introduction' (pp. v-xi) toj. T. Gilbert, A Jacobite Narrative of the Warin Ireland 1688-91 (Shannon, Irish University Press, 1971; reprint of 1892edn.).

Contributions to A New History of Ireland, eds. T. W. Moody, F. X.Martin, F. J. Byrne and W. E. Vaughan (9 vols. projected, Oxford,Clarendon Press for the Royal Irish Academy, 1976-):Volume III: Early Modern Ireland 1534-1691 (1976):Chapter XVII, 'The Restoration, 1660-85' (pp. 420-53); Chapter XIX,'The War of the Two Kings, 1685-91' (pp. 478-508); Bibliography(pp. 634-95).Volume VIII: A Chronology of Irish History to 1976 (A Companion to IrishHistory, Part I) (1982):(With D. MacFhionnbhair) '[Early Modern Ireland . . .] Chronology(A) 1534-1603' (pp. 196-221); (withT. W. Moody and C. J. Woods)'[Early Modern Ireland . . .] Chronology (B) 1603-91' (pp. 222-53);(with T. W. Moody and C. J. Woods) '[Eighteenth-Century Ireland1691-1800:] Chronology' (pp. 254-92); (with T. W. Moody andC. J.Woods) '[Ireland 1921-76:] Chronology' (pp. 401-72).Volume IX: Maps, Genealogies, Lists (A Companion to Irish History, Part II)(1984): Map, 'Land Owned by Catholics, 1641,1688,1703, by Counties'(p. 52); (withB. Bradshaw andC. J. Woods) 'Bishops of the Church ofIreland from 1534' (pp. 392-438); '[Principal Officers of the Central

Select Bibliography of]. G. Simms xviiGovernment in Ireland, 1172-1922:] Chief Governors (B) 1534-1800'(pp. 486-98); 'Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal, 1232-1922(B): 1534-1922'(pp. 509-11).Volume IV: Eighteenth-Century Ireland 1691 -1800 (1986Chapter I, 'The Establishment of Protestant Ascendancy 1691-1714'(pp. 1-30); Chapter XIX, 'The Irish on the Continent 1691 -1800' (pp.629-56).

'Introduction' (pp. 7-14) to William Molyneux, The Case of IrelandStated (Irish Writings from the Age of Swift, V, Dublin, Cadenus Press,1977).

'The Historical Work of T. W. Moody' (pp. 321-8), in Ireland under theUnion: Varieties of Tension. Essays in Honour of T. W. Moody, eds. F. S. L.Lyons and R. A. J. Hawkins (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1980).

ARTICLES AND PAPERS

1951'Land Owned by Catholics in Ireland in 1688' (Historical Revision IX),Irish Historical Studies, VII, 180-90.

1952'The Original Draft of the Civil Articles of Limerick, 1691' (SelectDocuments X), Irish Historical Studies, VIII, 37-44.

1953*'Williamite Peace Tactics, 1690-1', Irish Historical Studies, VIII,303-23.

1954'The Surrender of Limerick, 1691', Irish Sword, II, 23-8.

1955'The Civil Survey, 1654-6', Irish Historical Studies, IX, 253-63.*'A Jacobite Colonel: Lord Sarsfield of Kilmallock', Irish Sword, II,205-10.'A Letter to Sarsfield', ibid., II, 109..

xviii Select Bibliography off. G. Simms

1957*'Hugh Dubh O'Neill's Defence of Limerick, 1650-1651', IrishSword,III, 115-23.'Lord Kilmallock's Letters to His Wife', Journal of the Royal Society ofAntiquaries of Ireland, LXXVII, 135-40.

1958*'Connacht in the Eighteenth Century', Irish Historical Studies, XI,116-33.'James II and the Siege of Derry', Irish Sword, III, 286-7.

1959*'County Louth and the Jacobite War', Journal of the County LouthArchaeological and Historical Society, XIV, 141-7.

1960'County Donegal in 1739', Donegal Annual, IV, 203-8.*'Cromwell's Siege of Waterford, 1649', Irish Sword, IV, 171-9.v*'Irish Catholics and the Parliamentary Franchise, 1692-1728' (His-torical Revision X), Irish Historical Studies, XII, 28-37.'Irish Jacobites: Lists from T.C.D., MS. N.I.13', Analecta Hibernica,XXII, 11-230.*'The Making of a Penal Law (2 Anne, c.6), 1703-4', Irish HistoricalStudies, XII, 105-18.'Paris Gets News from Ireland, 1642', Irish Sword, IV, 268-9.'Report on the Compilation of a Bibliography of Source Material forthe History of Ireland 1685-1702', Analecta Hibernica, XXII, 1-10.

1961*'County Sligo in the Eighteenth Century', Journal of the Royal Society ofAntiquaries of Ireland, XCI, 153-62.""Kilkenny in the Jacobite War, 1689-91', Old Kilkenny Review, no. 13,pp. 10-20.

1962'The Alleged Treaty Stone of Limerick', Irish Sword, V, 266-7.'From General Ginkel's Accounts, 1691', ibid, V, 190.

Select Bibliography of J. G. Simms xi*'Mantis O'Donnell, 21st Lord of Tir Conaill', Donegal Annual, V,115-21.'Meath Landowners in the Jacobite War', Riocht na Midhe, II, 55-8.

1963*'Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne', Irish Sword, VI, 16-27.'The Garrison at Carrickfergus, 1689', ibid., VI, 118-19.*'The Irish Parliament of 1713', Historical Studies IV: Papers Read before theFifth Irish Conference of Historians, ed. G. A. Hayes-McCoy (London,Bowes and Bowes), pp. 82-92.

1964'The Siege of Derry', Irish Sword, VI, 221-33.'St. Ruth's Career', ibid., VI, 213.

1965*'Dublin in 1685', Irish Historical Studies, XIV, 212-26.'Mayo Landowners in the Seventeenth Century', Journal of the RoyalSociety of Antiquaries of Ireland, XCV, 237-47.*'Sligo in the Jacobite War 1689-91', Irish Sword, VII, 124-35.

1966'Donegal and the Ulster Volunteers', Donegal Annual, VII, 99-101.

1967*'County Donegal in the Jacobite War (1689-91)', Donegal Annual, VII,212-24.'Ireland in the Age of SwifV, Jonathan Swift 1667-1967: A DublinTercentenary Tribute, eds. R. McHugh and P. Edwards (Dublin, DolmenPress for the Swift Tercentenary Committee), pp. 157-75.'The Siege of Limerick, 1690', North Munster Studies: Essays inCommemoration of Monsignor Michael Molony, ed. E. Rynne (Limerick,Thomond Archaeological Society), pp. 308-14.'[Thirty Years' Work in Irish History:] Seventeenth-Century Ireland(1603-1702)', Irish Historical Studies, XV, 366-75.

1969*'John Toland (1670-1722), a Donegal Heretic', Irish Historical Studies,XVI, 304-20.*'Marlborough's Siege of Cork, 1690', Irish Sword, IX, 113-23.

xx Select Bibliography ofJ. G. Simms

1970""The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 (9 Will. Ill, c.l)', Irish HistoricalStudies, XVII, 185-99.

1971'Dean Swift and County Armagh', Seanchas Ardmhacha, VI, 131-40.'The Second Duke of Ormonde', Journal of the Butler Society, I, 170-3.*'Schomberg at Dundalk, 1689' , Irish Sword, X, 14-25.'A Surveyor's Report on Some Townlands in County Louth', Journal ofthe County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society, XVII, 150-5.'The Ulster Plantation in County Donegal', Donegal Annual, X, 3-14.

1972'Donegal in the Ulster Plantation', Irish Geography, V, 386-93.

1973*'The Case of Ireland Stated', The Irish Parliamentary Tradition, ed. B.Farrell (Dublin, Gill and Macmillan), pp. 128-38.

1974""Cromwell at Drogheda, 1649', Irish Sword, XI, 212-21.'The Huguenot Contribution to Ireland, with Special Reference toPortarlington', Huguenot Portarlington: Record of the Commemoration, 23August 1972 (Portarlington, The Rectory).'Remembering 1690', Studies, LXIII, 231-42.

1975'Denis Sheridan and Some of His Descendants', Breifne, IV, 460-70.

1976'G. A. Hayes-McCoy (1911-75)', Irish Historical Studies, XX, 51-2.

1977'The Battle of Aughrim: History and Poetry', Irish University Review,VII, 36-51.'Dublin in 1776', Dublin Historical Record, XXXI, 2-13.

1978

'Dean Swift and the Currency Problem', Numismatic Society of IrelandOccasional Papers Nos. 19-23, No. 20 (pp. 8-18).

1979

'The Williamite War in South Ulster', Clogher Record, X, 155-62.

Select Bibliography of J. G. Simms xxi

CROMWELL AT DROGHEDA, 1649

CROMWELL'S treatment of Drogheda is one of the horror stories of Irishhistory, and there has been general condemnation of what he did to thegarrison and townsfolk. But revulsion at the consequences of the siege

need not prevent us from examining the operation in its historical context, orfrom appraising the rival techniques of the defending and attacking commandersand their forces.*

Cromwell's campaign in Ireland was an extension of the English civil war.It took place after the execution of Charles I and was primarily a move againstroyalist support in Ireland for the young Charles II. This support was organisedby the marquess of Ormond, who on 17 January 1649—less than a fortnightbefore Charles I*s death—had succeeded in making terms with the catholics ofthe Kilkenny confederation. This enabled him to get most of the confederateforces to join his own protestant royalist force and the Munster protestants led byLord Inchiquin, who after various twists and turns was now on the royalist side.The execution of a Stuart king had outraged the Scots, and so the Scottisharmy in the north of Ireland also joined Ormond's coalition. Owen Roe O'Neillremained aloof at this stage, but Ormond hoped to win him over. There wasthus the making of a formidable royalist movement in Ireland. On 22 January,while Charles fs trial was going on, Ormond invited the prince of Wales, thefuture Charles II, to come to Ireland with the prospect of leading an Irish in/vasion force into England. Charles II preferred Scotland, but his cousin, PrinceRupert, brought a fleet to Munster where it remained for most of 1649, based onKinsale.

The parliamentary leaders in England took the threat from Ireland seriously,and they chose their most successful soldier, Oliver Cromwell, to be commander-'in/chief for an invasion of Ireland. Cromwell's own appreciation of the situationis given in a speech he made to the general council of the army. The followingextracts show his line of thought :

All the papists and the king's party . . . are in a very strong combinationagainst you . . . The last letters that the council of state had from thencedo plainly import that Preston has 8,000 foot and 800 horse, that Taaf hasas many, that my Lord Clanrikard has the same proportion, and that mylord Inchiquin and my lord Ormond have a matter of 3,000 foot and 800horse, that these are all agreed and ready in conjunction to root out the

•The main source for Cromwell's actions at Drogheda is The letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell,edited by Thomas Carlyle. The best edition is that of S. C . Lomas (3 vols., London, 1904), referredto as Lomas. A more recent and complete documentation is The writings and speeches of Oliver Cromwelled. W . C . Abbot (4 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1937^47). For the defenders the main source is Ormond'scorrespondence in the Carte MSS, Bodleian Library, Oxford. A convenient collection of documentsrelating to both attackers and defenders is in J. T. Gilbert, ed., A contemporary history of affairs in Ireland,1641*52 (3 vols., Dublin, 1879), referred to as Gilbert.

1

2 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730

English interest in Ireland and to set up the prince of Wales his interest. . .If we do not endeavour to make good our interest there, and that timely,we shall not only have . . . our interest rooted out there, but they will in avery short time be able to land forces in England and put us to troublehere . . . If they shall be able to carry on their work, they will make this themost miserable people on the earth, for all the world knows their barbarism.1

Cromwell was not prepared to accept the Irish command unless he wasassured that his army would be adequately financed and properly equipped.This was a sensible stipulation, as the parliamentary army was in arrears of pay,which had led to discontent, added to by the democratic ideas of the levellers,the left wing of the parliamentary side. There was doubt whether enough soldierswould be willing to go to Ireland. It was decided to draw lots to settle whichregiments should go, and to offer the men the choice of complying or beingdismissed. Levellers refused and were cashiered, but there were enough volunteersfrom other regiments to take their places. It took up to the end of June to raise,£100,000 to finance the expedition.

On 10 July, Cromwell set out for Milford Haven. Apparently he planned tomake Munster his objective, hoping to win over the protestants there with thehelp of Lord Broghill, with whom he had done a deal. But when he got toMilford Haven, where he met General Monck, he changed his mind and decidedto make for Dublin. This decision was confirmed by the news of the battle ofRath mines, in which Ormond had been routed by Jones, the parliamentarycommander. This victory secured Dublin as a port of entry. When Cromwellheard the news he wrote: 'this is an astonishing mercy, so great and seasonable asindeed we are like them that dreamed.'2 On 13 August he set sail from MilfordHaven, but only with part of the army, three regiments, about 3,000 men. He hada rough passage and, according to his chaplain 'was as sea/sick as ever I saw aman in my life'. He landed at Ring's End on 15 August. By a rather questionabledecision he ordered Ireton, his second-in-command, with the greater part of thetroops at Milford Haven to sail for Munster, but providence intervened. Weathermade it impossible for Ireton to land in County Cork and he joined Cromwellin Dublin, landing on 23 August. With the parliamentary troops previously inIreland and some regiments that crossed from Chester, Cromwell had 17,000men at his disposal, a formidable army by Irish standards. He also had what wasdescribed as 'the best train of artillery that ever came on Irish ground'. It includedfour whole cannon and five demi/cannon.3

Although the royalists had lost the battle of Rathmines and had failed to takeDublin, they had in other ways improved their position during the summer of1649. On 11 July Inchiquin succeeded in taking Drogheda (which up to thenhad been in parliamentary control), and most of the garrison went over to him.On 24 July Monck surrendered Dundalk to Inchiquin under pressure fromhis own men, most of whom went over to Inchiquin. This seems to have been

1 Abbott, Writings and speeches,n, 35/9.2 Lomas, i, 451.3 Perfect weekly account, $'12 Sept. 1649, cited in Ir. Eccles. Rff.,4th ser., xxx (1911). 53.

Cromwell at Drogheda, 1649 3

protestant reaction against Monck's attempt to use Owen Roe O'Neill againstthe Scots in Ulster. In the words of a contemporary account: 'the soldiers ranover the trenches to Inchiquin swearing deep oaths that they would not engagewith Monck, who had entered into a confederacy with Owen Roe, the head ofthe native Irish'.4 There was thus a clear line of communication between Ormond'scommand in Leinster and the Scottish army under Sir George Monro in thenorth/east.

Drogheda was a key position for both sides, and it was natural for Cromwellto make it his first objective to bar the arrival of support for Ormond from thenorth, whether from the Scots or from Owen Roe. According to Cromwellhimself 'the design was to endeavour the regaining of Tredagh [Drogheda], ortempting the enemy upon his hazard of the loss of that place to fight'.5 He setout from Dublin on 31 August with eight regiments of foot and six of horse,some ten or twelve thousand men—both figures are given—described as 'stout,resolute men' picked from a larger force. The first night they camped in 'LordBarnwell's field', which was probably at Turvey, just beyond Swords. Nextday on his way past Gormanstown castle he tried to capture the infant heir ofLord Gormanstown, but did not succeed. On the other hand, he kept strictdiscipline, issued stern orders against looting, and is said to have ordered two ofhis men to be put to death in the face of the whole army for stealing a couple ofhens from a poor Irishwoman. On 1 September he camped at Ballygarth,within five miles of Drogheda, and next day sent on some of his horse.

On 1 September the commander at Drogheda had received orders fromOrmond to destroy the castles on the Nanny Water (which flows parallel to,and south of, the Boyne), and next day, 2 September, he sent out parties for thepurpose. But Cromwell was too quick for him; his cavalry seized the castles ofAthcarne, Dardistown and Bellewstown before the royalists could reach them.Ballygarth had already been occupied the day before, so that all the crossings ofthe Nanny were in Cromwell's control. On 2 September his cavalry were alsoin the immediate neighbourhood of Drogheda on St. John's Hill to the south'west of the town. On 3 September, his 'lucky day', his main army was withinmusket shot of the town wall. His heavy guns were sent by sea and their arrivalwas delayed by contrary winds, so that it was nearly a week later before theywere in position.

Drogheda was, and is, divided into two halves by the Boyne. In early timesthe halves were distinct towns, each with its own defensive system. In Cromwell'stime the medieval walls were still there, a semi/circle on the south, or Meath,side, and a larger semicircle on the north, or Louth, side. Between them thewalls had a circuit of 11 miles. They were 20 feet high and 6 feet thick at thebottom, decreasing to 4 feet at the top to allow for a narrow walk on whichthere was standing/room for soldiers. There were 5 gates and 11 towers on thesouth side, and 7 gates and 19 towers on the north. Each half was on a steepslope down to the river. They were joined by a bridge, with a drawbridge, onthe site of the present bridge.

4 D. Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland, p . 16.5 Lomas, i, 466.

4 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730The commander of the garrison was Sir Arthur Aston, an English catholic

who had experience of fighting in various parts of Europe as well as of the civilwar in England. He had a wooden leg, the result of a fall from his horse. Ormondhad put him in charge on 17 August, in place of Lord Drogheda who had hadconnections with the parliamentary side. At the end of August the garrisonconsisted of eight troops of horse (a total of 319 men) and four regiments of foot(a total of 2,221). The regiments were Ormond's own (commanded by SirEdmond Verney, a protestant English royalist) and the regiments of ColonelsWall, Warren and Byrne. The three last are said to have taken no part in thebattle of Rathmines, as they had been kept in reserve. So their morale is likelyto have been higher than that of regiments routed in the battle. In fact, theDrogheda garrison was regarded as the flower of Ormond's army.

Colonel Garret Wall of Coolnamuck, County Waterford, was the mostsenior of the regimental commanders. He had seen service in France and hadbeen in command of a regiment since the confederate army was formed. ColonelWilliam Warren of Warrenstown (now Dillonstown), County Louth, is men/tioned as colonel of a regiment in 1646 and was taken prisoner at Dungan's Hillin 1647. Colonel Michael Byrne seems to have been the most junior, as he wasonly a captain when he was taken prisoner at Dungan's Hill. Curiously enough,his regiment is said to have consisted mostly of protestants, and it may have beenformed from the men who came over to Inchiquin when he took Droghedaand Dundalk. One would have expected Ormond to have chosen an 'oldEnglish' colonel for such a regiment. Warren and Wall are said to have hadcatholic troops. Ormond's regiment is likely to have had a good proportion ofprotestants. All four regimental commanders lost their lives at Drogheda.

Up to the last Ormond seems to have hoped that Drogheda could hold outlong enough to be relieved by the army of Owen Roe, with whom he wasnegotiating through his nephew Daniel O'Neill. On 22 September—the daythe town was stormed—Ormond wrote to Daniel: 'if Drogheda holds out till[your countrymen] come up it is possible Cromwell may receive an unexpectedcheck to his fortune where he promised himself clear success'.6 According toCromwell's doctor, Sir Arthur Aston hoped that the siege would drag on tillCromwell was worn down by bad weather, hunger and the harassment ofOrmond's cavalry: 'but he flatters himself in vain, for Cromwell attacks notthe place by opening of trenches, slow approaches and the other acts of a siege,but having forthwith caused a battery to be . . . planted with guns he so pliedthe place with continual shooting that he quickly made two breaches in thewall.'7

Ormond also put faith in 'Colonel Hunger and Major Sickness', but hismain hope was Owen Roe, who was at Ballykelly to the east of Derry and hadbeen playing for time by entering into an uneasy arrangement with the parlia/mentarians. Daniel O'Neill proved to be a successful intermediary, and on 5September he wrote from Ballykelly to let Ormond know that Owen Roe wasready to join him. Unfortunately Owen Roe was lame with a 'defluxion in his

6 Gilbert, ii, 261.7 Ibid., ii, 274.


knee'. Daniel added : 'this day he has a litter made for him; if tomorrow he hasany manner of ease he intends to march . . . the number of foot he hopes tobring your excellency will be near 6,ooo and about 500 horse . . . they are wellhorsed and armed to a very few'.8 Ormond was then at Ticroghan, a Fitzgeraldcastle about 35 miles south/west of Drogheda, superintending the operations byremote control. He later came rather nearer, to Portlester, where he was on 8September.

For several days after Cromwell reached the outskirts of Drogheda operationswere limited to skirmishing on both sides. Cromwell's horse and some of hisfoot were on St. John's Hill to the south-west of the town; his main camp wasto the south-east. The heavy guns were in the process of being mounted, partlyon Cromwell's Mount, which is to the east of the Meath half of the town, andpartly on a site to the south. Cromwell's Mount is separated from the town wallby a deep ravine, which was to prove a formidable obstacle in a storming oper-ation ; on the other hand it had the advantage that the battery was on a levelwith the wall. The battery to the south was much lower, but access for stormingwas easier. Cromwell never invested the northern half of the town at all. Herelied on his heavy guns to batter breaches that could then be stormed, a techniquethat he had developed in the English civil war.

On 4 September Aston reported to Ormond that a party of Cromwell'smen had crossed the Boyne at a ford near the town but had been driven back by asally from the garrison, both horse and foot. He said there was no considerableforce of the enemy north of the river, and this continued to be the case up to thetime that the town was stormed. On 8 September Aston wrote that his menhad been making sallies against the enemy on St. John's Hill. He observed thatthese sallies encouraged his own side and kept Cromwell's men on the qui viue :'but indeed I have not been in a place worse situated for sallies than this townis'.9 This activity had the disadvantage of using up his ammunition. On 9September he wrote that his stock was getting low: he had been using fourbarrels of powder daily for a week in his efforts to hinder the enemy's prepar-ations. Provisions were also getting short, and he had no money at all. He askedOrmond to attack Cromwell's main camp; he himself would then beat up theenemy force on St. John's Hill. That night he got some reinforcements of footfrom Ormond. Cavalry had also been sent, but they turned back before Astoncould get to the gate to speak to them. Morale in the garrison seems to have beenhigh. On 9 September Sir Edmond Verney wrote to Ormond that he had'great hopes and expectations that the service I am at present engaged in willreceive a happy issue, and the chief ground of this confidence is the unity, rightunderstanding and indeed entire friendship between ourselves. Warren andWall are my most intimate comrades, and indeed I have not in my life knownmore of diligence and circumspection than in these two gentlemen. Their menare all in heart and courage, having still had good success in our sallies, and wedo little fear what the enemy can do presently against us.'10

8 Ibid., ii, 252.9 Ibid., ii, 253.

10 Carte MSS, xxv, no. 312.

6 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730But Cromwell was by this time (9 September) ready to begin his cannonade.

His heaviest artillery were formidable weapons: two cannon of eight and twocannon of seven (guns of 8 and 7 inches bore, firing 48 and 42 pound shotrespectively). Altogether he had eleven siege guns and twelve field pieces. Astonwrote to Ormond that day that three great pieces had been discharged againstthe town. He begged him to attack Cromwell's camp, but still there was noresponse.

On the morning of 10 September Cromwell summonded Aston to surrender.Sir, Having brought the army belonging to the parliament of England

before this place, to reduce it to obedience, to the end effusion of blood maybe prevented I thought fit to summon you to deliver the same into my handsto their use. If this be refused you will have no cause to blame me. I expectyour answer and rest, your servant, O. Cromwell.11

When Aston failed to comply with the demand, Cromwell hoisted the redflag and his batteries opened up in earnest. Aston wrote his last letter that eveningand reported that a great breach had been made near St. Mary's church. Hecontinued:

I am confident their resolutions are to gain it immediately by anassault. The soldiers say well; pray God they do well. I will assure yourexcellency there shall be no want in me, but your excellency's speedy helpis much desired. I refer all things unto your excellency's provident care.Living I am and dying I will end, my lord, your excellency's most faithfuland obleeged humble servant. P.S. My ammunition decays apace and Icannot help it.12

Cromwell is said to have discharged 200 cannon balls at the wall that day.In the process the steeple of the church, on which the besieged had planted guns,and the high tower at the south/east corner of the wall were destroyed. Thecannonade continued next day (11 September), and after 300 shot had beendischarged there were breaches in both the east and south sections of the wall.The defenders meanwhile made retrenchments within the wall to contain thebreaches. At 5 p.m. the Cromwellians began their assault, apparently on bothbreaches, though the eastern side in particular presented formidable difficulties.Cromwell described the scene in a letter to the speaker of the English house ofcommons:

. . . about 5 p.m. we began the storm and after some hot dispute we enteredabout 700 or 800 men, the enemy disputing it very stiffly with us; andindeed through the advantages of the place and the courage God waspleased to give the defenders our men were forced to retreat quite out of thebreach, not without some considerable l o s s . . . . There was a tenalia toflanker the south wall of the town between Duleek gate and the cornertower. . . which our men entered, wherein they found some 40 or 50 ofthe enemy, which they put to the sword, and this they held; but it being

11 Gilbert, ii, 260.12 Ibid,, ii, 25SK60.


without the wall, and the sally port through the wall into that tenalia beingchoked up with some of the enemy that were killed in it, it proved no usefor our entrance into the town that way. Although our men that stormedthe breaches were forced to recoil, as before is expressed, yet being encouragedto recover their loss, they made a second attempt, wherein God was pleasedto animate them that they got ground of the enemy and by the goodness ofGod forced him to quit his entrenchments; and after a very hot dispute,the enemy having both horse and foot and we only foot within the walls,the enemy gave ground and our men became masters both of their retrench/ments and the church; which indeed, though they made our entrance themore difficult, yet they proved of excellent use to us, so that the enemycould not annoy us with their horse, but thereby we had advantage to makegood the ground so that we might let in our own horse, which accordinglywas done, though with much difficulty.13

From the memoirs of Edmond Ludlow, lieutenant/general of the horse in theCommonwealth army, it appears that Cromwell showed considerable modestyabout his own contribution to the success of the operation. According to Ludlowthe garrison defended the breach, probably on the south side, with an earthworkretrenchment, and had two or three troops of horse to support their foot. Cromwell

well knowing the importance of this action resolved to put all upon it; andhaving commanded some guns to be loaded with bullets of half a poundand fired upon the enemy's horse . . . . himself with a reserve of foot marchedup to the breach, which giving fresh courage to our men, they made asecond attack with more vigour than before. Whereupon the enemy's footbeing abandoned by their horse, whom our shot had forced to retire, beganto break and shift for themselves; which ours perceiving followed them soclose that they overtook them at the bridge that lay across the river.. . andpreventing them from drawing up the bridge entered pell-mell with theminto the place, having positive orders from the lieutenant/general [Cromwell]to give no quarter to any soldier.14

One account suggests that horse could not be used for the initial assault as thebreaches were too high in the wall and had to be scrambled over by infantry.This may refer to the south part of the wall where the battery had to fire uphill.The east part would in any case be too steep for horse. The foot regiment thatdefended the breach against the final assault was Wall's, which fought welluntil their colonel was killed.

Aston himself retreated to the highest point within the walls, the Millmount,a steep, strongly fortified mound in a corner of the wall. In his letter to the speaker,Cromwell described the attack on his position:

The enemy retreated, divers of them, into the Millmount, a place verystrong and of difficult access, being exceeding high, having a good graftand strongly palisadoed. The Governor, Sir Arthur Aston, and divers

13 Ibid., ii, 263/6.14 Ibid., ii, 272/3.


considerable officers being there, our men getting up to them were orderedby me to put them all to the sword.15

One account says that Aston was hewn in pieces and his brains beaten out ofhis head with his wooden leg. According to Ludlow there was a dispute amongthe soldiers for the leg, which was reported to be of gold: 'but it proved to bebut of wood, his girdle being found to be the better booty, wherein two hundredpieces of gold were found quilted'.1'

Cromwell ordered that no quarter should be given, and his treatment ofDrogheda has been condemned both by his critics and by those who otherwiseadmired him. Even those who argued that it was legitimate by the strict rules ofwar have thought that it went too far. The rules of war, as then interpreted,permitted the refusal of quarter if a town was stormed after a summons to sur-render had been rejected. In the case of Drogheda there is reason for believingthat not only the garrison but many of the townsfolk were put to death. Cromwellmaintained that his orders applied only to those in arms, though it is clear fromhis own account that catholic clergy were among the victims, and that he wishedto exact retribution for what he regarded as the barbarous behaviour of theIrish in general in 1641. His version is contained in his letter to the speaker:

being in the heat of action I forbade them to spare any that were in armsin the town and, I think, that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men,divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge into the otherpart of the town, where about one hundred of them possessed St. Peter'schurch steeple, some the west gate, and others a round strong tower nextthe gate called St. Sunday's. These being summoned to yield to mercyrefused, whereupon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's church to be fired,where one of them was heard to say in the midst of the flames 'God damnme, God confound me, I burn, I burn'. The next day the other two towerswere summoned, in one of which was about six or seven score; but theyrefused to yield themselves, and we, knowing that hunger must compelthem, set only good guards to secure them from running away until theirstomachs were come down. From one of the said towers, notwithstandingtheir condition, they killed and wounded some of our men. When theysubmitted their officers were knocked on the head, and every tenth man ofthe soldiers killed and the rest shipped for the Barbadoes.

There is some sense of uneasiness in his account, and he reinforces his apologiawith the argument that the example of Drogheda will discourage further re/sistance and so save lives in the long run:

I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon thesebarbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocentblood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future ;which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannotbut work remorse and regret.17

15 Ibid., ii, 264.16 Ibid., ii, 273.17 Ibid., ii, 264^5.


Exaggerated accounts of the rising of 1641 had impressed themselves on Cronvwell's mind, but it was a travesty to hold the garrison and citizens of Droghedaresponsible for the actions of Ulster Gaels.

It appears that Cromwell's subordinates had offered quarter and were sub/sequently overruled by Cromwell himself. Ormond said that Cromwell'streatment of Drogheda was against the wishes of his own men, and it appearsthat some of them helped refugees to get away. Inchiquin wrote to Ormond:

Many men and some officers have come in from Drogheda, amongstthem Garret Dungan and Lieutenant/colonel Cavanagh. No quarter wasgiven there with Cromwell's leave, but many were privately saved; thegovernor was killed after quarter given by the officer that took him. Therenever was seen so cruel a fight.18

One of those that escaped was Richard Talbot, the future Lord Tyrconnell.Inchiquin accused Cromwell's army of some very cold-blooded killing. In hisletter to Ormond he wrote: ' Verney, Finglas, Warren and some other officerswere alive in the hands of Cromwell's officers twenty-four hours after the businesswas done*. The story of Warren's fate is horrific; it is that in the defence of thebreach both his feet were blown off by a cannon-ball, but he continued to fighton his stumps till he was overpowered. Another story is that his horse escapedand galloped riderless to his stable at Warrenstown.19

The casualty figures reported by Cromwell's chaplain were: '3,552 of theenemy slain and 64 of ours . . . Aston the governor killed, none spared*. In theofficial bulletin the casualty figures were followed by the words 'and manyinhabitants'.20 The parliamentarian Ludlow called it 'extraordinary severity'and could only presume that the object was to discourage further resistanceelsewhere. Ormond wrote to the young King Charles:

'Cromwell. . . exceeded himself, much more than anything I everheard of, in breach of faith and bloody inhumanity'.21

There is a dreadful irony in Cromwell's own conclusion: 'I wish that all honesthearts may give the glory of this to God, to whom indeed the praise of this mercybelongs'.22

It was a shattering blow for the royalists. As Ormond reported to Charles:

It is not to be imagined how great the terror is that those successes andthe power of the rebels have struck into this people, who though they knowthemselves designed, at best, to the loss of all they have and to irrecoverableslavery, and have yet numbers enough and other competent means to opposeare yet so stupefied that it is with great difficulty I can persuade themto act anything like men towards their own preservation.23

18 Cal. Clarendon State Papers, ii, 22.19 Louth Arch. Soc. Journal, iv, (1916), 26^7.20 Gilbert, ii, 262, 269.21 Carte, Collection of letters, ii, 412.22 Gilbert, ii, 263.23 Ibid., ii, 270.


Arid yet neither Cromwell nor Ormond was right in believing that the drastictreatment of Drogheda would end resistance. Owen Roe O'Neill died thatautumn, but he had already agreed to throw the Ulster army into the fight.That army under Lieutenant/general O'Farrell and Hugh Dubh O'Neilloffered stubborn resistance at Waterford, Clonmel and Limerick, and therehad to be much more 'effusion of blood' before the struggle was over.

What are the military lessons to be learned from Drogheda ? Cromwell'stactics were clear: to make use of his control of the Irish Sea to transport hispowerful artillery by water to Drogheda; to choose convenient sites for hisbatteries; and to go all out for breaking into the town, irrespective of the difficultyof the terrain, overcoming all obstacles by sheer determination. What of Ormondand Aston ? Why did they think that Drogheda could be held against such apowerful attacking force ? Why did Ormond fail to support Aston by pressureon Cromwell's forces in the field ? The author of the 'Aphorismical Discovery'has an ingrained prejudice against Ormond and has criticised him bitterly onthis occasion:

If he did but stand upon the hill of Tara the enemy would not venturean assault against so strong a garrison and in the sight of so great an army;or if he marched with his army to Dublin, now naked and deserted, hewould easily divert the enemy; or else if he passed the north side of Drogheda,where was no enemy at all, he might relieve his party and defend the townin spite of all Cromwell's forces, for the very situation of the place was hisbulwark But nothing was done; all the hurley/burley of armiesmustered and brought to a body towards Ticroghan only were spectatorsof this bloody tragedy.24

But there was no hurley/burley of armies at Ticroghan. The various commandson the royalist side were widely dispersed, and Ormond seems to have hadlittle under his direct control to use for the defence of Drogheda. He told Charles IIthat his numbers were daily diminishing by defections, and that the rest were sodejected and discontented that it was considered unsafe to bring them close tothe enemy. But it was surely a mistake for him to have taken up a position as faraway as Ticroghan.

The uneasy coalition of protestant royalists, 'old English' catholics and GaelicIrish would have presented a problem to a stronger leader than Ormond. Theonly force capable of matching Cromwell was the Ulster army, and if it couldhave been brought into action at an earlier date Drogheda might have beensaved. According to Daniel O'Neill, Owen Roe would have been on the marchsouth by 7 September if he had not fallen ill, but even so he could hardly havegot his army to Drogheda in time to save it. The speed and efficiency of Cronvwell's assault was too much for his opponents.

24 Ibid., ii, 49.

CROMWELL'S SIEGE OF WATERFORD, 1649

sieges of Drogheda, Wexford and Clonmel, but there are severalinteresting things about it. For one thing, Waterford is the only town in

Ireland that Cromwell tried and failed to take. Apart from that, the localgeographical and political situation presented great difficulties to both the attackersand defenders.

In the first half of the seventeenth century Waterford was the second city inIreland, a thriving commercial port that ranked next to Dublin in size andwealth. Ships of 1,000 tons could come up the Suir and lie alongside a broadquay, " mainly fortified with stone and strong piles of timber." The town wasprotected by a double wall, with a number of gates and towers. Outside thewest gate, on Thomas's hill, was the citadel, a strong fort with four bastions,mounted with great guns, and with a moat on three sides of it.1 On the northit was flanked by the Suir and on the east by the harbour, where the forts ofDuncannon and Passage protected it from a naval attack.

Waterford had a long civic tradition in which fidelity to church and crownhad played a great part, though in recent years the church had counted for morethan the crown in the sentiments of the inhabitants. Waterford had been Urbsintacta since the time of Henry VII, but its recent history was chiefly marked bya strong Catholic fervour and, in particular, by its support of the Nuncio andhis robuster policy against the more temporizing attitudes of the Kilkennyconfederacy. Father Luke Wadding was a celebrated Waterfordian who hadmuch influence in determining the policy of the church in Irish affairs, andhis cousin Patrick Comerford was bishop of Waterford during the siege and astalwart upholder of the faith.

In the middle of 1649 nearly all Ireland supported the young king Charles IIagainst the parliament. Not only Ormond and the former Kilkenny confederates,but Inchiquin and his Munster followers, and Munro and his Scots in the north,were on the king's side. To fervent Catholics in Waterford some of these royalistsseemed very dubious allies. The parliamentary forces were restricted to Dublinand a few such towns as Derry and Dundalk where they were hard pressed andhad in desperation been induced to make a strange and temporary agreementwith Owen Roe O'Neill.

The royalist strength in Ireland provided such a threat to the parliamentaryposition as a whole that it was decided to send Cromwell himself to Ireland.His first objective was the Munster ports, of which Waterford was the largest,though Youghal, Cork and Kinsale were also important. One very urgentreason for dealing with Munster as a first priority was that it was the base of theroyalist fleet under Charles I's nephew, Prince Rupert. This fleet had been

1 Gernon quoted in Falkiner, Illustrations of Irish History, p. 352; Smith, Waterford, p. 171.

2

ROM WELL'S siege of Waterford is much less celebrated than hisC


equipped in Holland, and had sailed from there in the beginning of 1649 andmade its headquarters at Kinsale. Rupert continued to make Kinsale his base untilthe late autumn of that year. Apart from that, Cromwell hoped to win over theProtestants in Munster from their support of Inchiquin in his royalist phase.He had already won over Lord Broghill, the most energetic of the seven sons ofthe great Earl of Cork, and Broghill's influence could be expected to count fora great deal with the Munster planters.

As the Munster ports were his objective, Cromwell made for Milford Haven,which he reached early in August, 1649. While he was there and almost readyto sail, he got news of the battle of Rathmines, in which the parliamentarianMichael Jones defeated the royalist Ormond and saved Dublin for the parliamen/tary cause: in Cromwell's words " an astonishing mercy, so great and seasonablethat indeed we are like them that dreamed." This new development madeCromwell decide to go for Dublin instead of Munster. Dublin led on toDrogheda to secure the approach from the north and prevent Munro and hisScots coming down to join Ormond. As soon as he had finished with Drogheda—in every sense of the word—Cromwell reverted to what he called his southerndesign, the seizure of the Munster ports. In a letter to England he reported thathe was on his way back to Dublin and " then shall, God willing, advancetoward the southern design, you know what—only we think Wexford will beour first undertaking in order to the other."2

It appears then that Waterford was his first main objective even at that stage,and that the very irregular course of his route was due, first, to the need to guardagainst an attack from the north and, second, to the difficulties of approachingWaterford while a strong enemy force was still based on Kilkenny. Wexfordsurrendered on October 11 and New Ross on October 19. Cromwell's declarationat New Ross made it clear to Catholics that they could not expect tolerable termsfrom him in exchange for a negotiated surrender. When the governor of NewRoss tried to stipulate for liberty of conscience for the inhabitants, Cromwellanswered that " he meddled not with any man's conscience; but if by libertyof conscience was meant a liberty to exercize the mass, he judged it best to useplain dealing and to let him know, where the parliament of England had power,that would not be allowed."3 The moral of that would not have been lost onthe citizens of Waterford.

New Ross was a key point commanding the crossing of the Barrow, andCromwell made its importance clear to Speaker Lenthall in England: " Therendition of the garrison was a seasonable mercy, as giving us an opportunitytowards Munster." The approach to Munster was prepared by a great deal ofdiplomatic activity designed to win over the Protestants in Cork and Youghalto the parliamentary side. But Waterford was a strongly Catholic city and wouldhave to be tackled with more direct means. A double threat to Waterforddeveloped from New Ross. The building of a bridge of boats across the Barrowopened a passage on the Kilkenny side of the river. While the bridge was being

2 S. R. Gardiner, Commonwealth and Protectorate, I, p, 126.3 E. Borlase, History of the Irish rebellion (ed. 1743), p. 285.

Cromwell's Siege of Water ford, 1649 13built a determined attack was made on Duncannon on the Wexford side ofWaterford harbour. If Duncannon and, opposite it, Passage could be capturedby the parliamentary forces, Waterford could be attacked by a naval force goingup the estuary. Also there would be no fear, once those forts were in the controlof the parliament, of Prince Rupert's fleet coming to the rescue. That was adecided possibility. In the middle of October, while Cromwell was at New Ross,Rupert wrote from Kinsale to the governor of Duncannon giving elaborateinstructions about the procedure to be followed if any of the royalist fleet enteredWaterford harbour.4

Duncannon was held by a Catholic garrison commanded by Captain Roche.Roche took a defeatist view of the situation, and reported to Ormond that hismen were deserting and that Duncannon could not be held. Ormond's reactionwas to supersede Roche and put in his place a remarkable man named EdwardWogan, who belonged to the Rathcoffey family of Co. Kildare that later producedthe celebrated Chevalier Wogan. Edward had been brought up in south Walesby a Protestant uncle and had played a prominent part in the Civil War on theparliamentary side. He had then deserted the parliament and gone over to theScots. By this time he was supporting Ormond and the royalist cause in Ireland.Ormond sent in his own Life Guards with Wogan and they made a spiritedand successful defence of Duncannon. The siege was conducted by MichaelJones, the victor of Rathmines, who was Cromwell's lieutenant/general.Cromwell himself came down to inspect the ground and give a personal summonsto the garrison to surrender. He got a short and dusty answer, given in Roche'sname, though Wogan was really in command: " I and those under my commandare sensible of your cruel and tyrannical quarter; and this is therefore to let youunderstand that this place is kept for king and country and the preservation ofthe people."5

Duncannon was regarded by both sides as the key to Waterford, and bothattack and defence were vigorously conducted. The parliamentary forces gainedseveral important objectives, capturing Ballyhack, a castle about two milesupstream above Duncannon, and bringing boats from Wexford round HookHead so as to block the sea approach to Duncannon.8 Further still upstreamthey occupied Great Island, which commanded the river between Waterfordand Duncannon opposite Checkpoint, where the Barrow joins the Suir; it is,of course, no longer an island.7 On the royalist side, Ormond did his best toprovide reinforcements, munitions and supplies for Duncannon, and kept up aconstant correspondence on the subject with Lord Castlehaven, the EnglishCatholic who had played an important part in the affairs of the KilkennyConfederation; he was stationed at Crook, immediately opposite Duncannon.Wogan and his men made a series of sallies; in fact, they were so enterprising

4 Carte MSS, xxvi, 18.5 Borlase, op. tit., app., pp. 3/4. For Wogan see the article " Colonel Edward Wogan" by

Diarmuid Murtagh in THE IRISH SWORD, Vol. II, pp. 43 ff. For Duncannon see also the samevolume, pp. 17 ff.

6 Carte MSS, xxvi, 4.7 Ibii, pp. 54, 58.


that they frightened Ormond, who wrote to Castlehaven: " I wish the gentlemenin the fort would be more circumspect in their sallies; they may lose more thanthey can get."8 Wogan's defence was successful and the siege was raised onNovember 5, after more than a fortnight of active attack. The parliamentaryforces seem to have withdrawn in some disorder, as they left behind them two brassguns and a quantity of other material. They gave up Ballyhack at the same time.9

Although Wogan had covered himself with glory, the citizens of Waterfordwere very suspicious of his good faith and of the circumstances in which theCatholic Roche had been superseded. Ormond found that his orders hadraised so much criticism that he thought it politic to send Roche back toDuncannon, on the distinct understanding that so long as the siege lasted Woganshould be in command. Catholic distrust of Ormond and the Protestantroyalists was increased by what was happening elsewhere in Munster, whereCork and Youghal went over to the parliamentary side during October. Thesedefections were clearly a threat to Waterford from the west, and the completionof the bridge at New Ross would enable Cromwell to approach Waterford fromthe north. It was therefore clearly desirable to strengthen Waterford's defencesby providing it with an adequate garrison. Ormond's efforts to do so werefrustrated by the determination of the citizens not to accept any troops whosedevotion to the Catholic cause was suspect. Meanwhile the defences weremanned only by the local militia. Much suspicious bargaining went on betweenOrmond and the mayor and corporation, and one suggestion of Ormond'safter another was turned down. In particular, the citizens did not want Castle/haven for their commander, as although he was a Catholic he was also anEnglishman. Castlehaven reported that there were certain friars who werestirring up resistance and putting about a report that Inchiquin had come toterms with the parliament.10

The difficulties that Ormond had in persuading Waterford to accept a garrisonraised Cromwell's hopes and seem to have played a considerable part in leadinghim to move on Waterford at so late a date as the latter part of November. Irishprisoners coming from New Ross on parole reported that it was common talkamong Cromwell's men that Waterford would put up no resistance.11 This,and an unusually mild winter—better than any winter in living memory—12

were factors in favour of an attempt on Waterford. Against this Cromwellhimself was sick at New Ross and there was a great deal of sickness in his army.Ormond had been told that before Cromwell's army had reached New Rossthey had mutinied and demanded to go into winter quarters on the ground thatthey were so weakened by sickness and other hardships, which included a cutin their pay. Cromwell had succeeded in pacifying them by promising winterquarters after New Ross had fallen.13

8 Ibid., p. 18.9 Ibid., p . 71.

10 Ibid., p . 143.11 Ibid., p . 145.12 Ibid., p . 181.13 Ibid., p. 16.

Cromwell's Siege of Waterford, 1649 15

The first step to clear the way to Waterford was taken on November 20, whenColonel Reynolds with twelve troops of horse and three troops of dragoonsattacked Carrick/on/Suir early in the morning. Carrick was defended by aconsiderable force of English royalist troops. Reynolds divided his party intwo and " while the enemy were amused with the one " he forced an entry withthe other at one of the gates; a hundred prisoners were taken and seven footcolours without the loss of a single parliamentary soldier. There is a curioujaccount of how the Cromwellians forced their way into Carrick: the colonelsent a small party of Irish speakers ahead whose conversation was heard by thesentinels on the walls (presumably Irish'Speaking sentinels). When they werechallenged they said in Irish that they had come from the Irish army with lettersfor the governor; they were let in through the gate and they then overpoweredthe guards so that the main body could get in. Most of the defenders ran into thegreat house—Ormond's castle—and held it till next day, when they surrendered.14

The capture of Carrick gave Cromwell a way across the Suir and the protectionof Ormond's castle. The bridge was evidently out of action, but he could useboats. His own account shows how he appreciated the success: " we did lookat it as a special good hand of providence to give us this place, inasmuch as itgives us a passage over the river Sewer to the city of Waterford . . . so sweet amercy was the giving of this little place to us."15 The next day—November 21—Cromwell and the main army set out from New Ross on its way via Carrickto Waterford; the march took the best part of four days. On the first day atrumpeter delivered a letter from Cromwell to the mayor and aldermen ofWaterford, in which he referred approvingly to the fact that they had so farrefused to accept a garrison from Ormond; he suggested that it would be intheir own interests to come to terms and to surrender the city.16

The mayor, John Lyvett, at once sent Ormond a copy of Cromwell's letterand asked for military support, but he stipulated that the soldiers to be despatchedmust be acceptable to the citizens. He also urged Ormond to do what he couldto distract the Cromwellian army on its way to Waterford. Cromwell'strumpeter was kept waiting at Waterford for two days in the hope that newswould come from Ormond. When the trumpeter's patience was exhaustedLyvett gave an answer, asking for 15 days cease/fire and demanding thatCromwell's army should stop advancing towards Waterford while negotiationswere in progress. At the same time he wrote again to Ormond, saying that hisreply to Cromwell was only to gain time and asking Ormond to send 300" picked and choice men " out of the Ulster army commanded by Lieut./GeneralFarrell. If they were sent he was sure that Waterford could be held until Ormondrelieved it.17

This proposal to use Farrell's Ulstermen was the solution to Ormond's problem.

14 T.C.D. MS F.4.16; Carlylc, Cromwell's Utters and speeches (cd. S. C. Lomas), I, p. 509;Borlase, op. cit., app., p. 6.

15 Cromwell to Lenthall, 25 Nov., 1649 (Carlylc, op, cit., Ill, p. 509).16 Carlyle, op. cit., Ill, p. 512.17 Carte MSS, xxvi, 166, 169; Carlyle, op. cit., Ill, pp. 262^3.


Richard Farrell was a seasoned soldier who had seen service in the Spanisharmy in the Low Countries with Owen Roe O'Neill, who treated him as atrusted friend and had made him second in command of his own Ulster army.When Owen Roe and Ormond came to terms in October, 1649, Owen Roeshortly before his death sent Farrell with a strong Ulster army to join Ormond.This force was now available for the defence of Waterford. The high opinionthat the Nuncio had had of Owen Roe's army was shared by the citizens ofWaterford and they had no fear of their backsliding, as might be the case withInchiquin. Cromwell himself referred to them as " the eldest sons of the churchof Rome, most cried up and confided in by the clergy."18 Ormond had a highopinion of them too and sent word to Charles II that they were a very considerablebody of horse and foot and very cheerful in spite of the death of their general,Owen Roe.19 Owen Roe's secretary says in The aphorismical discovery of treasonable

faction that Farrell had 2,000 of the Ulster army at Waterford, though otheraccounts give a figure of 1,500. There seem to have been two regiments,presumably the two that appeared in a muster held at Waterford on January 24,1650, Farrell's own regiment and Colonel Turlough McArt Oge O'Neill's.They were far below strength when the muster was held; there were 430 inFarrell's and only 211 in O'Neill's. It appears that after Cromwell's withdrawalfrom Waterford many of the men returned to Ulster. Farrell's regiment looksvery much as if it were Longford rather than true Ulster. But Longford was oneof the counties that was under Owen Roe's control and was specifically includedin the agreement between Owen Roe and Ormond's agents. Six of the companycommanders were Farrells and none had an Ulster name. On the other hand,O'Neill's regiment was typically Ulster, with O'Neill, O'Hagan and McDonnellprominent among the names of company commanders. The force was referredto by both sides as Ulstermen, as was natural since both regiments formed partof Owen Roe's Ulster army.80

Cromwell and his army reached Waterford on November 24, before Farrellgot there. Cromwell's headquarters was at Kilbarry, to the south of the city,where there was a good house occupied by a Protestant called Aston, the tenantof Thomas Wadding. His army found that the suburbs had been burned andthe soldiers were greeted with gunfire from the walls. According to Ryland'shistory, Cromwell's forces were deterred by the fort on Thomas's Hill fromoccupying Bilberry Rock, a commanding position on the river bank some wayfrom the city walls. When Cromwell summoned the city to surrender, themayor, John Lyvett, sent him a copy of his former answer (the original of whichhad not reached Cromwell) and asked for a safe/conduct for negotiators and acessation of hostilities for fifteen days. Cromwell replied that fifteen days wasfar too long but offered four or five, provided that he was assured that no troopsnot then in Waterford were admitted during the cessation. He also sent a safe/conduct for negotiators. But by this time Farrell and his men had arrived at the

18 Ibil, III, p. 517.19 Carte MSS, xxvi, 181.20 Gilbert, Contemporary history of affairs in Ireland, II, pp. 57, 303, 505^7.

Cromwell's Siege of Waterford, 1649 17

ferry on the north bank and crossed the river by boats into the city. This put astop to the negotiations and the mayor sent an answer to Cromwell that he hadbeen forbidden to negotiate. The author of The Aphorismkal discovery creditsFarrell with giving Cromwell the stout reply that he had 2,000 Ulstermen withhim and as long as any of them survived he would not yield the town. A letterof the time says that there was now such correspondency between Waterford andOrmond that they were all determined to die or defend the city.21

That day, November 24, Cromwell sent a detachment of horse and dragoonsto Passage, which commanded the west side of Waterford harbour. After somefighting it surrendered on promise of quarter. The Cromwellians occupied itand also secured two guns which the Irish had on the shore to block shippingfrom coming up the harbour. With Passage and the western shore of the harbourin their possession the Cromwellians were able to bring ships of 300 tons upthe river in spite of Duncannon being in enemy hands. They also hoped tointerfere with supplies coming down the river to Duncannon.22

That same day, November 24, Inchiquin with a strong force of Munster andUlster infantry tried to cut Cromwell's communications by taking Carrick.They invested it on both sides of the river and also tried to storm it. Accordingto the Cromwellian account, "they managed the attack with a great deal offierceness, storming it four or five times with ladders and other engines they hadbrought with them, and though these men were famous for courage andexperience yet they were as often beaten back as they attempted the walls with amiraculous opposition, our men being mostly sick." Carrick was defended byColonel Reynolds with his regiment of horse, a troop of dragoons and about200 foot. He reported that the attack was beaten off with a loss to the enemy ofabout 500 and little loss to the defenders; the parliamentary officers paid tributeto the courage of the attackers, making particular mention of the Ulster foot,who " did their part very well, coming up five or six times to the town wall inspite of heavy losses." Cromwell sent Lieut./General Jones up from Waterfordwith a party to relieve Carrick. Jones marched all night and made all possiblespeed, but by the time he got there the Irish army had withdrawn to Clonmel.23

Cromwell himself gave a lively account to Speaker Lenthall of this engagement:" the enemy marched down with great fury towards Carrick with their wholearmy, resolving to swallow it up, and upon Saturday the 24th assault the placeround, thinking to take it by storm; but God had otherwise determined. Forthe troopers and the rest of the soldiers with stones did so pelt them they wereforced to draw off after having burned the gates, which our men barricaded upwith stones, and likewise having digged under the walls and sprung a smallmine, which flew in their own faces."24

But Cromwell found that these initial successes were counterbalanced by otherfactors. The weather, which had been remarkably good, now broke and he

21 Ryland, Waterford, p. 71; T.C.D. MS F.4.16; H.M.C., Ormonde MSS, ii, 105.22 Carlyle, op. cit., I, pp. 510/11.23 Borlase, op. cit., app., p. 9.24 Carlyle, op. tit, I, pp. 509^10.

18 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730could not bring his heavy guns along the roads.25 His army was attacked bydisease—the flux. After six days of the siege Ormond was in a reasonablyoptimistic mood and reported to Charles II that Cromwell's army was decayingincredibly; he had before Waterford at most 4,000 foot, 2,000 horse and 500dragoons, and to make up these numbers he had drained the garrisons of almostall serviceable men. Ormond thought that if there was any courage in thecitizens of Waterford and the garrison to correspond with the strength of thetown and their means of defence Cromwell might be defied, particularly if theweather was its usual self. The effect of this would be to weaken Cromwellconsiderably as the result of an attempt which he had only made because he hadheard that the Waterford citizens had refused to accept a garrison—as indeed theydid until Cromwell was at their gates. Ormond was, however, still anxiouslest the citizens' nerves and their fears for their property might mean the lossof the city.26

Some account of the day to day progress of the siege is available from notesmade by Henry Jones, Bishop of Clogher, who was the brother of Cromwell'sLieutenant/General and himself later became Scoutmaster/General of theparliamentary army.27 On November 27; Cromwell posted a detachmenthalfway between Carrick and Waterford to secure his communications. On thenext day news was received of another threat to Carrick from Ormond's armyand Lieut.'General Michael Jones was sent to counter it with a party of horseand dragoons. That same day the main Cromwellian army was moved to thesouth/east of Waterford along the river, so that it could conveniently receiveprovisions coming up the river protected by the guns of Passage, and also takedelivery of guns from the Great Island, which had at an earlier stage beenfortified by the Cromwellians. Cromwell hoped that Farrell and his garrisonwould sally out and give an opportunity for an open fight. But they were not tobe drawn and in very stormy weather there seemed little hope of a successfuloutcome to the siege. On December 1 the decision to raise the siege was taken.The main reason was sickness. Cromwell said that every night a company wason duty ten men fell sick and he was left with no more than 3,000 fit men toput into the field. The bad weather also interfered with the bringing up ofsupplies and they were running short of bread. The lie of the land made it verydifficult to maintain supplies for an army attacking Waterford from the southbank of the Suir.28

Cromwell's army marched away on December 2, which he described asbeing '* so terrible a day as ever I marched in all my life."29 That night he hadreached Kilmacthomas, fifteen miles from Waterford. There he got the goodnews that Dungarvan had just surrendered to Broghill. Waterford was now ina very isolated position. On December 13, Wogan and Farrell tried to relieve

25 Gardiner, op. cit, I, p. 142.26 Carte MSS, xxvi, 181.27 T.C.D., MS F.4.16.28 Carlyle, op. cit., Ill, p. 513.29 Ibid., p. 514,

Cromwell's Siege of Waterford, 1649 19the pressure by a joint attack on Passage, but met with a severe reverse. Woganbrought over two great battering guns from Duncannon and a mortar, and heand a strong force of Ulster foot were pressing the attack on Passage when aparliamentary force of horse and dragoons under Colonel Sankey fell on them.In Cromwell's words " the Ulsters, who bragged much of their pikes, madeindeed for the time a good resistance, but the horse pressing sorely upon thembroke them, killed near ioo upon the place and took 350 prisoners, amongwhom was the renegado Wogan." Wogan was condemned to death as a deserterfrom the parliamentary side, but he managed to escape from Cork and livedto perform more exploits in the royalist cause, including the rescue of Charles IIfrom the battlefield of Worcester. Cromwell continued: " Lt./Gen. Farrellwas come up very near with a great party to their relief, but our handful of menmarching towards him he shamefully hasted away and recovered Waterford."30

This reverse at Passage discredited Farrell and the Ulster army. Even theviolently prcUlster Aphorismical discovery rebukes Farrell for carelessness in notkeeping a proper look/out for an enemy attack, although the writer contrives toput the greater part of the responsibility on Ormond. Ormond on the other handclaimed that if the citizens of Waterford had allowed him and his troops to marchthrough the town he could have gone to Farrell's rescue.31

In spite of this setback, Waterford remained unconquered for that winter, andat the end of 1649 Waterford and Duncannon were the only places still holdingout on the whole coastline from Derry round by Dublin to Cape Clear.Waterford continued to hold out during the spring and early summer of 1650,while things went from bad to worse for the royalist cause in Ireland. Not tillthe end of July did the city surrender to Ireton on terms which allowed thegarrison to march three or four miles out of the city, deliver up their arms andequipment, undertake not to fight again against the Commonwealth, and goanywhere in Ireland (except a garrison town) or abroad that they pleased. Aweek later Duncannon surrendered on similar terms.32

30 Carlyle, op. cit., I, 515T6.31 Gilbert, op. cit., II, p . 59; Carte, Ormonde, II, p . 103.32 Ireton's correspondence with Waterford is in Borlase, op, cit., app., pp. 32^46.

3

HUGH DUBH O'NEILL'S DEFENCE OF

LIMERICK, 1650-1651

OLIVER CROMWELL'S campaign in Ireland lasted nine months—from August, 1649 to May, 1650. Although it was successful aswell as ruthless, it was a long way from bringing the whole of Ireland

under the control of the Parliament. The object of Cromwell's savagery atDrogheda and Wexford was declared to be the saving of life by intimidating thethe Irish into a rapid surrender. But it seems to have had the opposite effect,and the war was to drag on for more than two years after Cromwell had left.

Cromwell's stoutest opponent was Major/General Hugh Dubh O'Neill,who put up an enterprising defence of Clonmel, inflicted heavy losses on theParliamentary army, and got his men away undetected before Cromwell's nose.Hugh Dubh was the nephew of Owen Roe; his father was Owen Roe's elderbrother, Art Oge, and he was born in Brussels about 1611. He had considerableexperience of active service in the Spanish army, including a spell as adjutantto Owen Roe, and he was a seasoned soldier when he came to Ireland, apparentlyin 1641.1 He seems to have been of a rather gruff disposition, as he is describedas a surly old Spanish soldier. He was captured early on in the war, but wasexchanged after Benburb. Ormonde, the Lord Lieutenant, selected him for thedefence of Clonmel, where his handling of the situation made a great impressionon Parliamentary opinion. They concluded that they had found in Clonmelthe stoutest enemy they had met in Ireland, and that " there was never seen sohot a storm of so long continuance and so gallantly defended, neither in Englandnor in Ireland." When Cromwell got into Clonmel and found the birds flown,he asked the mayor who was this Duff O'Neill. The mayor said he was anoversea soldier born in Spain. Cromwell growled: " God damn you and youroversea. By God above I will follow that Hugh Duff O'Neill wherever he goes."2

But he didn't. He was urgently needed on the other side of the Irish Sea to meeta threat from Scotland.

Ireland was left to his son/in/law, a very different type of commander. HenryIreton was more distinguished for his piety and his gift for political philosophythan for his military ability. But Ireton and Cromwell got on well together;he had married Cromwell's daughter Bridget and had risen to the rank ofLieutenant/General. He was very conscientious and hard-working. Onedescription of him ran thus: " Never a more able, painful, provident andindustrious servant; if he erred in anything it lay in too much neglecting himself,

1 The Rev. Brendan Jennings, O.F.M. and Mrs. Micheline Walsh have kindly furnishedinformation about Hugh Dubh's career in the Spanish service.

z J. T. Gilbert, A contemporary history ofaffairs in Ireland from 1641 to 1652, II, p. 416. This book,

has a valuable account of operations in the Limerick area in 1651.which priters a number of contemporary documents, is the chief source for the siege. Ludlow's Memoirs��

22 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730for like a candle he wasted his light to give light to others, seldom thinking ittime to eat till he had done the work of the day at nine or ten at night, and thenwould sit up as long as any man had business with him. Indeed he was every/thing from a foot soldier to a general and thought nothing done when anythingwas undone."3 After Cromwell's departure the main Irish army was in thenorth under Bishop MacMahon. That was very soon defeated at Scarrifhollis,and the line of the Shannon was left as the front line of Irish defence, withLimerick and Athlone as the key points. Various forces under Ormonde,Clanricarde and others were available to protect Connacht and Clare.

Limerick was of crucial importance. It was a large and well/defended city in aposition of great natural strength. Its walls were in pretty good order and hadbeen strengthened at various points during the course of the war. The Shannondivides at Limerick; a branch, called the Abbey river, makes an island whichwas called the King's Island. The main part of the city—the English town—was on the south/western part of this island. On the mainland to the south ofthe Abbey river was the smaller Irish town. Both were walled, and there weretwo bridges, the Thomond bridge over to Clare and Ballsbridge which crossedthe Abbey river between English town and Irish town. The shape of the wallsof Limerick has been compared to an hour/glass or a figure of eight or even aspider. A besieging army was concerned with how to cross the Shannon so asto invest the town on both sides, and then how to get on to King's Island so asto make an entry into the English town.

The geographical situation thus presented great advantages to the defendersof Limerick. These were largely counter/balanced by the divided state of publicopinion in the city. Throughout the war Limerick had been torn by factions.One side had wanted to make terms with Ormonde; the other had backed theNuncio and would not have Ormonde's terms at any price. In 1650 Ormonde,as the Protestant governor of a royalist Ireland that was overwhelmingly Catholic,was in great difficulties. This was particularly so in Limerick, where the anti/Ormonde side had shown itself to be the stronger party. His problem was toget the inhabitants to accept a military commander to defend the city againstIreton's forces. A great deal of haggling took place before it was eventuallyagreed that Hugh Dubh O'Neill, the defender of Clonmel, should be themilitary commander of Limerick. Further arguments took place about theregiments the citizens would let in to form the garrison. O'Neill was in a verydifficult position, what with squabbling townsmen, no regular troops and theParliamentary forces approaching. One of his letters to Ormonde is marked" Haste, haste, post/haste," and Ormonde endorsed it " From Major/generalHugh O'Neill concerning the distraction and irresolution of the citizens ofLimerick concerning their receiving a garrison for their defence."4

Ireton was well aware of these squabbles and seems to have thought he wouldbe able to exploit them so as to get the surrender of both Limerick and Athlonebefore winter set in. He divided his army. He himself made for Athlone, which

3 Quoted in R. W. Ramsey, Henry Ireton, p. 185.4 Gilbert, op. cit., Ill, p. 182.

Hugh Dubh O'Neill's Defence of Limerick 23

was held by Lord Dillon who skilfully played for time with long/drawn parleysings. He sent Major/General Sir Hardress Waller to deal with Limerick. Wallermust have known Limerick well, as twenty years before this he had marriedMiss Dowdall of Kilfinny and had become a big landlord in the county.Advantage was taken of the Parliament's seapower. A ship called the Hectorwas sent with ordnance, ammunition and provisions to the mouth of theShannon.5

On 9 September, 1650 Waller sent a letter to O'Neill calling on him tosurrender, failing which Limerick would be besieged. He got a stout answerfrom O'Neill: " No such threats are able to daunt my resolutions, seeing I amno stranger to the like. Sir, I am entrusted with this place from my lord lieutenantto maintain it for the use of his majesty King Charles, which I resolve by God'sassistance to perform, notwithstanding any power shall offer against me, evento the effusion of the last drop of my blood. I thank you for the care you haveto shun effusion of blood; I am as loth to it as you; but I conceive my honourno less concerned for the defence of my lawful king than yours is for the stateof England."6

O'Neill was chiefly concerned that Waller would succeed in crossing theShannon as the obvious preliminary to a siege. Shortly after his summons wasrefused Waller captured Carrigogunnel Castle, about six miles west of Limerick.The rumour was that he was aiming for Cratloe Castle on the opposite side ofthe river. But O'Neill and Ormonde between them managed to strengthen theClare garrisons, and Waller had made little progress by the beginning of October,when he was joined by Ireton who had given up Athlone as a bad job. Iretonthen sent a summons to Limerick, promising that the city should be protectedif it would surrender and let his army through to the other side of the Shannon.The mayor answered, refusing Ireton's demand. Ireton stayed in front of Limerickfor ten days. Then he held a council of war, which decided that it was too latein the season to start active siege operations and that all that could be done was" to block it up on this side the water by garrisons adjoining." Ireton accordinglywithdrew the main part of his army and contented himself with keeping Limerickunder watch from detachments posted at various points such as Kilmallock andCastleconnell. If Ireton had made a vigorous attack on Limerick in the summerof 1650, there seems no reason why he should not have taken it. Apart from theabsence of a regular garrison, O'Neill told Ormonde in the middle of Septemberthat there was no ammunition in the city.

During the winter Ireton made slow and thorough preparations for an activesiege in the early summer of 1651. By February he was collecting tents, clothesand provisions, and arranging for ships to sail to the mouth of the Shannonwith cannon and ammunition. In May Ireton once more advanced towardsLimerick. For an effective siege he had to cross the Shannon and accordinglyhe made for Killaloe, which he reached on May 21. Lord Castlehaven was incommand of two thousand Irish troops on the opposite side of the river and made

5 J. Nicholls, Original letters from Ireton, p. 15.6 Gilbert, op, cit., I l l , p . 180.

24 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730some effort to fortify the banks to prevent a crossing. Ireton manoeuvred for aweek in the neighbourhood. His troops took possession of an island—presumablyFriars' Island—and collected boats and cots while Castlehaven's men plied themwith small shot. But the water was too rough near Killaloe and, after settingapart a day for guidance from the Lord, Ireton decided to try lower down theriver at O'Brien's Bridge, eight miles above Limerick. There was no bridgethere at that time, but there was an island in midstream capable of holding twothousand men. The plan was to use this island as a halfway point for throwinga bridge across the river; the materials for the bridge had been collected andkept ready. On the opposite bank were the ruins of an old house in which was adetachment of Irish troops guarding the crossing. A stump of an old castle stoodat the water's edge. If the crossing could be forced and these ruins captured,they could be made the basis of a bridgehead. Ladders were prepared for stormingthe castle stump and " palisadoes and turnpikes" as a rapid means of fortifyingthe bridgehead. The weather favoured the Parliamentary army and the river,which had been too deep to ford when Ireton first reached it, had fallenappreciably. The crossing was made at daybreak on June 2 by Captain Draperof Sadler's regiment with three files of firelocks, that is, flintlocks, which were agreat improvement on the matchlock type of musket. The first party to land tookpossession of the ruined house and castle. They brought with them long cableswhich were fastened to the bank and used to tow boats across, so that within anhour five hundred men had crossed over to the Clare side of the river. TheIrish forces, both horse and foot, at first offered some opposition, but the crossingwas covered by great shot from Ireton's cannon on the Limerick bank. This,aided by shouts and the blowing of trumpets, intimidated the Irish intoretreating. The news that the river had been crossed at O'Brien's Bridge madeCastlehaven fall back hurriedly from Killaloe, leaving his tent, plate and otherpossessions as booty for the Parliamentary army. Ireton could now march downthe Clare bank to a point opposite Limerick.

By this time there was a flotilla of Parliamentary ships in the mouth of theShannon which blocked the estuary and had captured Clonderalaw Castle onthe Clare side. These ships kept the Parliamentary army supplied with provisionsand also carried heavy guns which were put ashore for the siege operations.

To secure his position Ireton ordered the construction of a large fort at the Clareend of Thomond bridge, capable of holding a thousand foot and a troop ofhorse. He also started the construction of two forts to the south and southwestof the Irish town, which were called Cromwell's fort and Ireton's fort, with anentrenchment linking them. On June 14 Ireton summoned Limerick to surrenderand at the same time started a bombardment. A battery of twenty/eight guns andtwo mortars sited opposite Thomond bridge bombarded King John's Castle.A curious and horrific account records that in this bombardment a slate wasdislodged which killed a child in a woman's arms. The child was buried andsoon after another shot hit the grave and blew the child's body out of it. On thethird day of the bombardment the defenders sent an answer that they were readyto bargain: commissioners should be appointed to arrange terms and thereshould be a cease-fire during the negotiations. Ireton refused the cease/fire but


agreed to appoint six commissioners. The Irish also appointed six commissioners,Major/General Purcell—O'Neill's second'in/command—and five others. TheParliamentary commissioners were headed by Lieutenant/General EdmundLudlow, who has given an account of the siege in his Memoirs; he had comeas second/nvcommand to Ireton in the early part of 1651. The talks went onfor several days and the two sets of commissioners dined together during them.Ireton offered fairly good terms: the garrison would be given quarter and allowedto march out with their arms and with their colours flying. The citizens would belet off with the confiscation of a third of their property. But no security for thepractice of the-Catholic religion was allowed and a firm refusal was given to theIrish request on this point. The negotiations broke down, and the Parliament/arians thought that Limerick hoped for relief from the Irish forces still activein the neighbourhood.

O'Neill was evidently aware that it was necessary to prepare for a long siegein which the town would face the ordeal of starvation. So he tried to get rid of asmany useless mouths as possible at this stage. Ireton countered by sending themback with a letter to O'Neill, saying that any more persons sent out would beseverely dealt with. O'Neill would not let them in and sent out some more tojoin them, so Ireton ordered four to be knocked on the head as a warning.By mistake forty were knocked on the head, which made Ireton very angry.

The Parliamentarians made a successful attack on the fort which was on theSalmon weir—the Lax weir—on the west side of St. Thomas's Island. A greatshot hit this fort, killed three of the defenders and wounded others. The resttook to their boats but came under heavy musket fire and surrendered to theParliamentary forces, some on the Clare bank and some on the Limerick bank.They were offered quarter by the Parliamentary troops, but the commander onthe Clare side, Colonel Tothill, repudiated the arrangement and put them allto the sword. Ireton was angry with Tothill, who was court>martialled andremoved from his command. The fort on the weir was a valuable prize for theParliamentary army and they made a floating bridge across the river just belowit. This gave a more direct line of communication between the two parts oftheir force than the other bridge they had made at Castleconnell, several milesupstream.

On the Thomond bridge between the second and third arches from theClare side there was a two/storied gate/tower held by the defenders. TheParliamentary army attempted an assault on it on June 19. This was unsuccessful,as their ladders were too short. But after further bombardment they stormed iton June 21; the technique adopted was to select a leading man from eachtroop for the assault. These picked men were provided with back, breast and headpieces and supplied with hand grenades. They succeeded in capturing thetower and were given a gratuity as a reward. However, the Irish broke downsome arches of the bridge nearer the city so that the Parliamentarians could notcome across.

The next point on which Ireton concentrated was the part of King's Islandbeyond the walls of the city. A landing here would have given the attackerstheir best chance of storming the English town, which was otherwise strongly


protected by its island situation. The Irish do not seem to have made any regularfortification on this part of the King's Island (as they did in 1691), but the troopswho held it had thrown up breastworks along the shore. The crossing was tobe made at midnight by boats and a floating bridge from the Clare side. Butit was mismanaged; two of the boats with eighty men crossed before the restand were overwhelmed by the Irish troops. Seventy/nine of the eighty werekilled, which discouraged the Parliamentary side so much that they gave up theKing's Island project altogether and set the next day aside as a day of humiliation,bewailing the sins of the army that had aroused the Lord's displeasure.

Ireton now decided not to try any more assaults for the time being, but tostarve the town out. The Parliamentary forces seem to have been inadequatelysupplied with siege engineers. In any case Limerick was a formidable propositionin view of the failure of Ireton's men to make a landing on the King's Island.But the town was completely invested and in time was bound to be starved if theParliamentary army could maintain its position. Apart from the threat ofstarvation the defenders were chiefly troubled by plague, which had been broughtto Ireland by a Spanish ship and was particularly severe in Limerick. Thewell/known doctor, Thomas Arthur, was in Limerick all through the siegeand we have his case/book,7 written in Latin, which makes a number of referencesto " pestis " and one to " bubonis pestis "—bubonic plague.

O'Neill's force was by no means passive. Taking advantage of Ireton's goinginto Clare with a considerable body, they made a sally with two thousand menwhich nearly surprised the Parliamentary troops. On another occasion afterIreton had returned and was inspecting his new fort he had a narrow escape whenthe garrison made another sally. O'Neill continued his attempts to rid the townof useless mouths, which alarmed the Parliamentarians because of the risk ofplague infection. Ireton countered by putting up a gibbet in sight of the townwalls and having a few hangings as a deterrent.

Apart from plague and starvation Ireton relied on factions in the town. Hewas able to correspond with the peace party, and offered terms to them, but saidhe would have no mercy on the diehards—O'Neill himself, the bishops ofLimerick and Emly, and other named persons. But the diehards proved toostrong for the peace party, and the siege dragged on towards autumn. Ireton'sartillery bombarded the town without much effect on the defenders. By themiddle of September the Irish were hopeful that winter would set in and makethe positon of the besiegers impossible. One of the Irish soldiers is said to havecalled out from the wall to the besiegers " You labour to beat us out with bomb/shells but we will beat you away with snowballs." This is supposed to be thefirst recorded use of the word bombshell, mortar shot being the ordinary phrase.Dr. Arthur's Latin case/book has an entry of a patient whose arm was smashed" bomhnis impetu "—by the force of a bomb.

By October 23 the peace party, led by Colonel Fennell, was gaining the upperhand. A new mayor in favour of surrender had come into office that month,and a joint meeting of the military and civil sides agreed to negotiate without

7 B.M., Add. MS. 31885.


stipulating that any particular individuals should have their lives spared. Thebishops of Limerick and Emly (whose own lives were threatened) at onceannounced that they would excommunicate any negotiators who accepted theslaughter of Catholic prelates. Fennell and his fellow peacemakers then seizedthe Castle gate, getting the keys from the mayor. O'Neill challenged this andattempted to have Fennell tried before a council of war. Fennell refused to attendand trained the Castle guns on the city. Ireton's guns then started a heavybombardment which made a breach in the walls at a point where there was noearth lining the inner side or counterscarp on the outside. This seems to havebeen in the east wall of the Irish town, which was rebuilt in the later part of theseventeenth century.

The Irish now decided to send out commissioners with full powers to negotiate.Fennell took the opportunity to let two hundred redcoats into the gate/towerof King John's Castle. The commissioners agreed to considerably worse termsthan had previously been offered. The garrison were allowed to march out,but without their arms. The townsfolk were not to be allowed to stay in Limerick.O'Neill, Purcell, the bishops and some of the most obstinate citizens such asDominick Fanning were to lose their lives. Ireton entered Limerick by the eastwater/gate near Ballsbridge. O'Neill met him at the gate, presented him with thekeys and ordered the garrison to march out. The regular troops had been reducedto twelve hundred from the original strength of two thousand. In addition,there were four thousand townsmen capable of bearing arms. The garrison hadbeen ordered to lay down their arms at St. Mary's church. 3,770 small arms,83 barrels of powder, 3$ tuns of match, 23 barrels of shot, and 34 guns—8 ofbrass including 2 demy cannons—were found in the city, besides pioneers'tools. O'Neill himself showed Ireton the stores of arms, ammunition and prcvisions which the Parliamentarians calculated would have lasted another threemonths. He also showed Ireton the fortifications and told him where he couldfind some of those excluded from the terms who were throwing themselves onIreton's mercy.

Major General Purcell, the two bishops and others who were excluded fromthe terms had escaped, but Purcell and one of the bishops were captured andhanged, the bishop showing considerably more resolution than the General.O'Neill's own fate was then considered. The Parliamentarians took the viewthat his letters and actions showed that his was the chief influence in the obstinateresistance that Limerick had shown. O'Neill maintained that he had onlydone his duty and that he had in fact been in favour of an earlier surrender.His letter is as follows: " Right honourable, the relation I have of your nobleand generous disposition induceth me to presume pleading your favour in mypresent condition (which I presume to be innocent), being guilty of no base ordishonourable act, having only discharged the duty of a soldier as became aman subject to a superior power to which I must have been accountable. Neitherin relation of this was I transported either with passion of my own or the violentstrain of others who would not be directed with reason, and in the whole courseof my proceedings since I came into this garrison I appeal to the judgement andcensure of the men of best understanding within this city what my behaviour hath


been and with what difficulty and patience I endeavoured the surrender of thisplace, being satisfied in all humane reason and policy (even from the beginning)that it could not withstand your power. I shall therefore humbly entreat yourhonour to take my condition into your serious consideration that I be not other/wise dealt withthan the justice or injustice of my case requireth, which I shallundoubtedly expect from a person of my Lord Deputy's honour and throughthe intercession of your lordship, which shall remain an undoubted obligationnever to be unacknowledged by

" Your Lordship's most humble servant" Hugo O'Neile

" Limerick 30 Oct 1651."8

In the council of war Ireton spoke against sparing O'Neill's life, urging thathis defence of Clonmel had been responsible for many English deaths. He carriedthe majority with him, but seeing that some of the council were dissatisfied withthe verdict, he put the question again and this time the vote went in favour ofO'Neill.

On November 3 Ireton sent a long despatch to the speaker of the EnglishParliament. It is an extremely interesting document, and something of the skillof O'Neill's defence of Limerick can be read between the lines of it. Iretonmade it clear that he had been very disappointed at the length of time it took toget Limerick to surrender. After it crossed the Shannon in the early summerthe Parliamentary army achieved little for several months. In fact God had" exercised their faith and patience with divers small losses in the surprise ofseveral garrisons and parties by the lurching enemy." Ireton said the siege hadlasted four months longer than he had expected—chiefly on account of jhefailure of the attempt on King's Island. That would have been the most satis/factory point from which to force an entrance, but the attempt had failed and thedefenders had since protected the area by their " industrious working." Acouncil of war had then decided not to attempt an assault, but to starve the cityout. It was believed that this would not take more than two or three months,but as the season advanced and winter approached the Parliamentary army sawno prospect of the garrison being starved out. They therefore determined tobombard the city to induce the inhabitants to surrender before winter set in,which would involve many hardships and hazards for the sickly Parliamentaryarmy. Some of their battering guns had been carelessly lost at Clare, but otherswere collected from various places and stationed at a favourable place whichthe Lord had up till then hidden from their eyes. The bombardment waseffective in bringing an offer of surrender in the nick of time, as wintry weatherhad set in immediately after the terms were accepted. Up till then the seasonhad been drier and milder than been known for many years.

It is remarkable that the siege should have gone on right up to the end ofOctober—that is well into November new style. It was much earlier in the yearthat William gave up his siege in 1690, and in 1691 Ginkel was just about to

8 Gilbert, op. cit., Ill, pp. 258/9.

Hugh Dubh O 'Neill's Defence of Limerick 29give up when negotiations started at the end of September. The weather of1651 was much more favourable to Ireton and less favourable to O'Neill thaneither of them could have expected. The Parliament ordered Ireton's despatchto be printed and fixed a day of thanksgiving to the Lord for his " great andseasonable mercy in the delivering up into the hands of the Parliamentary forcesin Ireland the strong and populous city of Limerick with all the artillery, armsand ammunition therein." Jersey and the Isle of Man were thrown into thethanksgiving for good measure.

His despatch to the speaker was almost the last act of Ireton's life. A few dayslater he caught a bad cold on a day of rain, snow and strong wind. He couldnot be persuaded to go to bed until he had heard the court-martial of an officerwho was accused of treating the Irish with violence and had dismissed him fromhis command. Next day he was off riding in the stoniest part of Clare. Hiscold turned to fever, but he insisted in going on with his work. His constitutionwas run down with his exertions during the siege and on November 7 hewas dead.

O'Neill was sent to England in the same ship that carried the embalmedbody of Ireton. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but released on theapplication of the Spanish ambassador on the understanding that he wouldtake no part in fighting against English troops. He was therefore not employedin the Netherlands, but was sent to Spain where he served with distinction as aGeneral of artillery in Catalonia. His health broke down and by 1660 he wasconvinced that he had not long to live. He said as much in a letter of that yearto Charles II, in which he claimed that he had succeeded to the title of Earl ofTyrone.9 The date of his death is not known, but it cannot have been longafter.

9 A facsimile of this letter is in Gilbert, op. cit., Ill, 392.

4

JOHN TOLAND (1670-1722), A

DONEGAL HERETIC

contemporaries.1 He was a man of many parts and extraordinaryversatility: a linguist with some claims to scholarship, a political

propagandist and a speculative thinker. At the same time, he wasbrash and indiscreet, with the result that he fell out with one patronafter another and was forced to make a precarious living as a GrubStreet hack. But his writings influenced later generations, weretranslated into French and German, and gave him an internationalreputation as one of the forerunners of the age of reason.

Contradictory accounts have been given of his origins and earlylife. But there seems no reason to doubt his own version that he wasborn in Inishowen, County Donegal, in 1670 and brought up as anIrish-speaking catholic.2 His family background is shadowy and thereare hints that he was illegitimate. His schooling evidently gave himsufficient grounding to develop his remarkable talents; it also seemsto have made him dissatisfied with the environment in which he wasbrought up. When he wras sixteen he abandoned his faith and his

1 This paper was originally delivered in Trinity College, Dublin, on18 Apr. 1968, as a lecture in the O'Donnell series. I am grateful toProfessor H. F. Nicholl for allowing me to make use of his unpublishedthesis, ' The life and work of John Toland ', and to Mr W. Dienemanfor allowing me to make use of his unpublished ' Bibliography of JohnToland '.

2 Apology for Air Toland (1697), pp 16-17; self-composed epitaphin J. Toland, Collection of several pieces, pp lxxxviii-ix, edited by PierreDesmaiseaux (1726), who prefixes a life of Toland. A less reliablebiography is that of [E. Curll], Historical account of the life of JohnToland (1722). The fullest contemporary biography is the introductionto J. Mosheim, Vindiciae antiquae Christianae disciplinae adversusceleberrimi viri Johannis Tolandi, Hiberni, Nazarenum (2nd ed., Ham-burg, 1722). Local tradition makes his birth-place Ardagh in the parishof Clonmany (W. J. Doherty, Inis-Owen and Tirconnell, p. 150). Anotherversion is that he was born in France of an Irish father and a Frenchmother and did not come to Ireland till he was ten or twelve years old(Edmund Gibson to Dr Charlett, 21 June 1694, in Bodl, Ballard collec-tion, v, 27).

ohn Toland was one of the most remarkable of Swift's IrishJ


native county, and went to study in Glasgow.3 It appears that thebishop of Derry, Dr Ezekiel Hopkins, helped him to go and that hisfirst contacts were with the episcopal church in Scotland. But he soonquarrelled with the archbishop of Glasgow and his next patrons werethe presbyterians, by whom he was supported during his course atthe university, in which he was an alumnus academicus—educatedfree of charge. His standing with the presbyterians was apparentlyimproved by his part in pope-burning and rabbling the episcopalclergy, and he obtained a certificate from the Glasgow magistrates,which he kept for the rest of his life, that he had behaved himself as' ane trew protestant and loyal subject'.4 In 1690, the day beforethe battle of the Boyne, he obtained the Edinburgh M.A. degree,which was commonly granted to Glasgow students who were not' ane trew protestant and loyal subject'.4 In 1690, the day beforeGlasgow there were violent disputes in the university, in which thestudents took an active part; many left the university and attendedclasses held by professors of their own choosing. It was an excitingtraining in controversy and independence of thought.0 The violentlyprotestant and anti-episcopal climate of Glasgow was in strikingcontrast to the conservative Catholicism of Inishowen, and Tolandquickly developed the free-thinking and anti-authoritarian principlesthat he was to hold for the remainder of his life. He himself regardedthis development as a conversion from what he called the grossestsuperstition: ' God was pleased to make my own reason and such

3 Apology for Mr Toland, p. 16. He says that he went from Redcastle(which is on Lough Foyle); his biographers have assumed that he wentto school there, but he may have meant that it was the point of embark-ation.

4 Corr. quoted in F. H. Heinemann, ' John Toland and the age ofreason ' and ' John Toland, France, Holland, and Dr Williams ' in Rev.Eng. Studies, xx (1944), pp 127-8; xxv (1949), pp 346-7. The certificateis in B.M., Add. MS 4465, f. 1.

3 Edinburgh university was under the control of the town council(A. Grant, Story of the university of Edinburgh, i, 183-4).

66J. Coutts, History of the university of Glasgow, pp 160-4. ForScottish interest in radical thought at this time see C. Robbins, Theeighteenth-century commonwealthman, pp 177 ff. In 1722 the Glasgowstudents showed their addiction to free thought by electing as rectorToland's friend and patron, Lord Molesworth, who was active in sup-porting the rights of the students against the university authorities,possibly under Toland's influence (Coutts, p. 201; H.M.C. var. 8,PP 347-52).

John Toland (16 70-1722), a Donegal Heretic 33

as made use of theirs the instruments of my conversion'. He dis-claimed the suggestion that reaction from his catholic upbringingmight have taken him unjustifiably far in the opposite direction.7

His next move was to London where he became an admirer ofDr Daniel Williams, a prominent dissenting minister who was accusedof unitarianism. With characteristic forwardness Toland wrote toJean Le Clerc, the Huguenot savant who had taken refuge in Holland,sending him a copy of Williams's book Gospel truth stated andvindicated', with it was a covering letter from himself as ' a studentof divinity', explaining the controversy that had arisen over the bookand suggesting that an abstract of it might be published in theBibliotheque universelle, of which Le Clerc was editor. Le Clercpublished the abstract together with Toland's letter.8 Williams andhis friends were so impressed with Toland's zeal and piety that theycollected money to send him to study at Leyden in 1692. He wasmuch impressed by the free-thinking and tolerant atmosphereprevalent in Holland. Le Clerc in particular had a great influence onhim. But he stayed there for only a year, and it appears that hisdeparture was hastened by his own indiscretions. John Locke waslater told that Toland was an indiscreet man, without shame andwithout religion.9 He had now abandoned the idea of becoming adissenting minister. In the words of an acquaintance: ' having nowcast off the yoke of spiritual authority, that great bugbear and baneof ingenuity, he could never be persuaded to bow his neck to thatyoke again, by whomsoever claimed Y° This faced him with theproblem of earning his living, which he never solved satisfactorily,though he managed to keep going by literary work and the supportof patrons. His ambition was to make his mark as a man of learning,and he chose for his base Oxford which, with its high anglicantraditions, was unlikely to prove congenial to his temperament.

He had recommendations to several of the ' most ingenious' menin the university, including Dr Mill, the principal of St EdmundHall, whose speciality was Anglo-Saxon. Toland hoped to be a matchfor ' their antiquaries and linguists who saluted me with peals of

7 Toland, Christianity not mysterious, pp ix, xiii.8 Collection, i, xi. For Williams see D.N.B. He had been a minister

in Dublin, where his assistant was Gilbert Rule, who became rector ofEdinburgh University shortly after Toland took his degree.

9 P. Coste to Locke, 23 June 1699, quoted by Heinemann in Reviewof English studies, xxv. 348-9.

10 Benjamin Furley to Locke, 19 Aug. 1693 (ibid.).


barbarous sounds and obsolete words, and I in return spent upon themall my Anglo-Saxon and old British etymologies, which I hope gavethem abundant satisfaction; Hebrew and Irish I hope will bear meout for some weeks, and then I'll be pretty well furnished fromthe library, into which I was sworn and admitted yesterday V1According to the antiquary and linguist, Edward Lhwyd, Tolandhad come to Oxford to write ' an Irish dictionary and disserta-tion to prove the Irish a colony of the Gauls \12 Among Toland'spapers were comparative lists of Breton and Irish words which proveto be of considerable interest to Celtic scholars today, though Tolandsometimes forced his parallels between the two languages. He canclaim to have anticipated Lhwyd in the study of comparative Celticlinguistics.13 He stayed for a year at Oxford, making a name forhimself as ' railing in coffee-houses against all communities in religionand monarchy \14 A friend told him that he had the Oxford reputa-tion of being ' a man of fine parts, great learning and little religion \15

11 Toland to , Jan. 1694 [Collection, ii, 293).12 E. Lhwyd to J. Aubrey, 9 Jan. 1694 (R. T. Gunter, Early science

at Oxford, xiv, 217).13 Collection, i, 204-28. The Breton words were supplied by Dr Mill,

and Toland himself gave what he thought to be the Irish equivalents.I am grateful to Professors R. Hemon and D. Greene of the DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies for examining the lists. Professor Hemoninforms me that the first section (pp 205-11) consists of words taken fromG. Quicquer, Dictionnaire et collogues frangois et breton, first publishedin 1626 and frequently reissued. The edition used must have been priorto 1671, as the form of the words is late middle Breton; from 1671editions of Quicquer were in modern Breton. The rare Breton word' tremenguae ', meaning field-path or stile, was wrongly rendered intoFrench by Quicquer as ' escalier '; Toland made the same error in givingthe Irish equivalent as ' dremire'. Toland's second section (pp 212-19)contains a mixture of Breton and Welsh words, in which the spelling isin the early modern form of Breton. The spelling corresponds almostexactly with Gregoire de Rostrenen, Dictionnaire frangois-celtique oufrangois-breton, 1732. Gregoire's dictionary contains a number of wordsmarked ' alias ' (his term for ' obsolete '), which have long puzzled scholars.Several of these, both Breton and Welsh, occur in Toland's secondsection. As Gregoire died before the end of the seventeenth century, theycannot be derived from the Collection of Toland's pieces (published in1726). Unless Mill got them from Gregoire himself, both must be derivedfrom a common source. Toland's third section (pp 220-6) containsreligious texts, numerals and a few colloquial sentences, all taken fromQuicquer. His Irish equivalents are of interest.

14 Lhwyd to Lister, n.d. (Gunter, p. 2.78).15 to Toland, 4 May 1694 (Collection, ii, 295).

John Toland (16 70-1722), a Donegal Heretic 3 5

The Irish dictionary never materialised, but he continued to beinterested in Celtic civilisation and towards the end of his life sketchedout a ' specimen of the critical history of the Celtic religion andlearning', which was largely concerned with Druidism.10 He drewon his boyhood memories for accounts of Inishowen landmarksassociated with Druidism, a rocking stone at Clonmany, placeswhere Mayday bonfires were lit, and a hill named after a white-legged Druidess, Cnoc na Gealchosaighe.17 He was familiar withO'Flaherty's Ogygia, of which he possessed a copy. He refers to thebook of Ballymote, saying that it is in the library of Trinity College,and cites other Irish manuscripts in the collections of the earl ofClanricarde and the duke of Chandos.18 He also quotes a numberof Greek and Roman writers on various aspects of Celtic civilisation.His Irish background and wide reading give some value to a pioneeringattempt to present a general picture of Celtic tradition.

He left Oxford for London and attached himself to John Locke,to whom he had been given letters of recommendation from Holland.Locke was particularly interested in monetary questions at the timeand gave Toland an Italian treatise on the subject to translate.19 ButToland's chief concern was religious speculation. He was clearly muchinfluenced by Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity in writing hisown first and best-known book Christianity not mysterious, whichwas published in 1696. He borrowed from Locke the concept thatChristianity was a rational creed, comprehensible to an intelligentreader of the bible, without further assistance. But Toland's bookaroused much more hostility than Locke's had done. It was shorter,blunter, more anti-clerical, and it had a more aggressive title. Tolandargued that mystery in the New Testament referred to things thathad previously been obscure, but had now been rendered intelligible:' the gospel itself that was heretofore indeed a mystery and cannotnow, after it is fully revealed, properly deserve that appellation \20

He complained that the churches had overlaid the original core of

16 Collection, i, 1-203. It was published in 1,740 under the titleA critical history of Celtic religion and reissued in 1814.

17 Ibid., pp 23, 104-5.18 Ibid., pp 36-7, 51. The book of Ballymote disappeared from the

college library some time before 1742 (T.C.D. MS D 1. 6, f. 1).19 Bernardo Davanzati, A discourse of coins; translated from the

Italian by John Toland (1696). Locke's copy of the book is in theGoldsmiths' Library, University of London.

20 Christianity not mysterious (1696), pp 102-3.

3 6 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730

rational Christianity with unintelligible accretions that only served topuzzle simple folk: ' the uncorrupted doctrines of Christianity arenot above their reach or comprehension, but the gibberish of yourdivinity schools they understand not'. Revelation for Toland wasno more than a means of information, carrying conviction by itsinherent reasonableness.21 In this book Toland wrote as a professedChristian, but he was attacked as a deist, and the later developmentof his thought showed a widening gulf between his philosophy andorthodox Christianity.

Christianity not mysterious proved to be the most controversialbook of the time and provoked a large number of replies, includingone from Dr Peter Browne, fellow and later provost of TrinityCollege, who afterwards became bishop of Cork: a promotion forwhich Toland claimed the credit. Browne drew rather fine distinctionsin his retort to Toland. ' That Christianity is not mysterious', hesaid, 'is very true; that there are no mysteries in Christianity isabsolutely false '. He denounced Toland as ' an inveterate enemy torevealed religion ', and asserted that Toland's real design was ' noother than what he formerly declared and what he openly affects, tobe the head of a sect'; he even wondered whether Toland wasambitious to become ' as famous an impostor as Mahomet \22

In the early part of 1697 Toland went over to Dublin. He is saidto have gone there with the prospect of becoming secretary to thenew lord chancellor—John Methuen, an English whig; but he failedto get the post. Toland is mentioned in a ballad of the time whichattacked Methuen to the tune of ' Lilliburlero ' :

To secure the church to be of his side,He has made Toland his spiritual guide.23

Dublin was notorious for quarrels between the church party andthose who favoured toleration for dissent, and the church party wasin a militant mood. Toland's book had preceded him and caused anuproar, which increased when he himself arrived. The unfortunateLocke found himself involved in the controversy, as Toland took careto proclaim that he was Locke's disciple and admirer. He introducedhimself as such to William Molyneux, ' the man whom Locke wasproud to call his friend '. Molyneux wrote of him to Locke: ' he was

21 Ibid., pp 37-8, 147.22 P. Browne, A letter in answer to a book intituled Christianity not

mysterious, pp 9, 96, 148, 196.23 P.R.O., S.P. 32/11, ff 76-7, quoted in A. D. Francis, The Methuens

and Portugal, pp 356-8.

John Toland (1670-1722), a Donegal Heretic 37

born in this country but . . . has been a great while abroad, and hiseducation was for some time under the great Le Clerc. But that forwhich I can never honour him too much is his acquaintance andfriendship to you and the respect which, on all occasions, he professesfor you. I propose a great deal of satisfaction in his conversation. Itake him to be a candid free-thinker and a good scholar. But thereis a violent sort of spirit reigns here, which begins already to showitself against him, and I believe will increase daily, for I find the clergyalarmed to a mighty degree against him.324 Locke had reason tobelieve that Toland's book had aroused criticism of his own work.His reply to Molyneux gave a very cautious assessment of Toland:a man of parts and learning if his vanity did not impair his usefulnessto the world. He asked Molyneux to be kind to Toland, but left it tohis prudence how far to go.25

Molyneux soon found that there was need for caution in dealingwith Toland. He wrote to Locke: ' he has raised against him theclamours of all parties; and this not so much by his difference inopinion as by his unseasonable way of discoursing, propagating andmaintaining it. Coffee houses and public tables are not proper placesfor serious discourses relating to the most important truths. . . . MrToland also takes a great liberty on all occasions to vouch yourpatronage and friendship, which makes many that rail at him railalso at you. I believe you will not approve of this as far as I am ableto judge by your shaking him off in your Letter to the bishop ofWorcester. But after all this I look upon Mr Toland as a veryingenious man and I shall be very glad of any opportunity of doinghim service.' Molyneux was evidently attracted and impressed byToland in spite of his indiscretion. He was also puzzled as to whatToland was doing in Dublin and how he was financed : ' he is knownto have no fortune or employ and yet is observed to have a subsistence,but from whence it comes no one can tell certainly \2fl Some of hiscritics believed Toland to be the paid emissary of a powerful anti-religious group, but if this was the case his financial support was notgenerous.

Molyneux was disturbed that condemnation of Toland's bookshould be accompanied by legal proceedings, and he blamed Dr

24 Molyneux to Locke, 6 Apr. 1697 (Locke, Familiar letters to hisfriends, p. 190).

25 Locke to Molyneux, 3 May 1697 (ibid., p. 206).26 Molyneux to Locke, 27 May 1697 (Familiar letters, p. 216).


Browne for calling in the aid of the civil magistrate. The Dublingrand jury condemned the book—without reading a page of it—andit was also referred to the committee of religion in the Irish house ofcommons.27 Toland addressed an apologia to a member of thecommons, protesting that his only desire was to defend Christianityagainst unjust imputations. There was some support for him amongthe more whiggish politicians, but the church party was too strongfor them. On the recommendation of the committee of religion thecommons resolved that the book should be burned by the commonhangman twice over, in front of the parliament house and an hourlater in front of the tholsel, and added that Toland himself shouldbe arrested and prosecuted. He saved himself from this fate by a hastydeparture for England, on borrowed money.28 One critic praised theparliament for making Ireland too hot for ' a Mahometan Christian,notorious for his blasphemous denial of the mysteries of our religionand his insupportable violence against the whole Christian priest-hood ,'29 Bishop King thought that parliament was aiming not merelyat Toland but ' against some greater persons that supported him '.He thought that there was a formal conspiracy and that agents andemissaries were employed ' to cry down the credit of religion '.80

When Toland got back to England, he was commissioned to writea life of Milton, a task that was greatly to his taste. He found Miltona man after his own heart, the champion of free speech and religioustoleration, the opponent of hierarchy, who had engaged ' in contestwith the famous Ussher (for he would not readily engage a meaneradversary) against prelatical episcopacy '. He noted that in later lifeMilton ' was not a professed member of any Christian sect, frequentednone of their assemblies, nor made use of their peculiar rites '.S1

Toland did his work well; he consulted Milton's widow and nephewamong other sources, and a modern critic has commended the bookas one of the best early biographies of Milton.82 But Toland found

27 S a m e to same, 20 Ju ly 1697 (ibid., p p 227-8) .28 Commons' jn. Ire. (1798), ii, 190 (9 Sept. 1697); Molyneux to

Locke, 11 Sept. 1697 {Familiar letters, pp 236-7); Richard Cox to ,14 Sept . 1697 ( H . M . C . , Portland MSS, iii. 586).

29 Collection, i, xxvi.30 W. King to archbishop of Canterbury, 13 Sept. 1697 (T.C.D. MS

N 3. 1, p. 86); same to bishop of Waterford, Sept. 1697 (ibid., p. 91).31 Toland, Life of John Milton (ed. of 1761), pp 22, 140.32 Helen Darbishire, Early lives of Milton (1932), pp xxviii-ix.

Toland's life is reproduced in full in the book.

John Toland (16 70-1722), a Donegal Heretic 39himself in serious trouble as a result of his demonstration that EikonBasilike was not the work of Charles I, and of his comparison of thatattribution to ' suppositious pieces under the name of Christ, hisapostles and other great persons \33 This appeared to be a doubleattack on Charles the Martyr and on the canon of the New Testament.It was condemned in the next 30th of January sermon, preachedbefore the English house of commons by the Rev. Offspring Blackhall.Toland was denounced as ' impudent enough publicly to affront ourholy religion by declaring his doubt that several pieces under the nameof Christ and his apostles (he must mean those now received by thewhole Christian church, for I know of no other) are suppositious \34

Toland replied with a lengthy list of apocryphal works attributed toChrist and his apostles, thus showing up his adversary's ignoranceand his own learning.

Toland's strong views and love of argument naturally involvedhim in the political controversies connected with the future of theEnglish crown and the relations between church and state. There wasno doubt where Toland stood in these matters. He was for theHanoverian succession and against all arbitrary authority; in politicsa whig, and in matters of religion a tolerator of non-conformity.Defending himself against his critics he declared: ' I have alwaysbeen, now am, and ever shall be persuaded that all sorts of magistratesare made for and by the people and not the people for or by themagistrates . . . and consequently that it is lawful to resist and punishtyrants of all sorts. . . . I am therefore and avowedly a common-wealth's man \35 With these views he found a congenial task inwriting a biographical introduction to Oceana and other works ofHarrington, whom he calls ' the greatest commonwealthman in theworld'. Toland enjoyed the patronage of the whig aristocrats, theduke of Newcastle and the third earl of Shaftesbury.30 Anglia liber awas a defence of the act of settlement, which fixed the succession onthe house of Hanover. It was dedicated to ' the most noble andmighty prince, John, duke of Newcastle '.

In 1701 Toland was one of the party who went to Hanover topresent the act of settlement and bring the order of the garter to the

83 Life of Milton, p. 77.34 Ibid., p . 161.35 Toland, Vindicius liberus (1702), pp 126-7.86 For Har r ing ton as a commonweal thman and for the relations

between T o l a n d and Shaftesbury see C. Robbins, op. cit., pp 3 4 - 4 1 ,125-33-


future George I. In the following year he returned to Germany andvisited Berlin. He recorded his impressions in the Account of thecourts of Prussia and Hanover, which gave a highly favourable pictureof both courts.37 He was a particular admirer of the Electress Sophiaand was astonished at her ' incomparable knowledge in divinity,philosophy, history and the subjects of all sorts of books of which shehas read a prodigious quantity. She speaks five languages so well thatby her accent it might be in dispute which of them was her first . . .[English] she speaks as truly and easily as any native.' This may beexaggerated, to judge from what he says of the future George I :' he understands English and in a little while will speak it readily'.The electress took a great interest in Toland and engaged in longdiscussions with him. But she asked him not to write about her, andwas shocked to find that he had ignored her request. At Hanover hemet Leibniz, with whom he engaged in arguments that continued forseveral years. High life was exciting: gold medals and royal portraits,burgundy and champagne in lavish quantities. What he particularlyliked in both courts was the absence of sectarian divisiveness. Libertyof conscience was enjoyed by both Lutherans and Calvinists: ' theclergy seldom appear at court in either Hanover or Berlin '. Thereare hints that his conduct in Germany was indiscreet, but he deniedthat he was banished from both courts.88

As was to be expected, Toland was a strong supporter of Marl-borough's war against Louis XIV. In 1705 he offered his servicesto Robert Harley, who was an influential figure in the coalitiongovernment that was conducting the war. He proposed to go toGermany on Harley's behalf ' neither as minister nor as spy', but asa private observer who would send a weekly letter of information.Harley did not agree to this, but employed him to write propaganda.89

Toland is thus one of the distinguished company that included Defoe,Prior and Swift. The Memorial of the state of England was a pleafor protestant unity in defence of religion and liberty. It was dedicated

87 Published in 1705; the second and enlarged edition (1706) wastranslated into French and German; another edition was published in1714.

38 Account of the courts (ed. of 1714), pp 55-78. Toland's corre-spondence with Leibniz is in Collection, ii. 383-402. See also F. H.Heinemann, 'Toland and Leibniz' in Philosophical Review, liv (1945),439-57-

39 F. H. Heinemann, ' John Toland and the age of enlightenment'in Rev. Eng. Studies, xx, 135.

John Toland (1670-1722), a Donegal Heretic 41to Harley, who was described as having an unequalled knowledgeof the people's liberty and the bounds of the prince's prerogative andtherefore best fitted to ' encounter those who would confound all ourrights and bring us under a slavish and barbarous subjection '. Harleyfound contemporary relevance in an anti-French declaration of thetime of Henry VII, which Toland translated and published under thetitle A philippic oration to incite the English against the French, butespecially to prevent the treaty of a peace with them too soon afterthey are beaten . . . by an uncertain author who was not for paringthe nails but quite plucking out the claws of the French. Harley issaid to have promised Toland to make him keeper of the paperoffice, a post worth £400 a year. The promise was not redeemed,but Toland acknowledged that Harley, the best friend he had onearth, supplied him for two years out of his own pocket ' in diet,clothes, lodging and all other expenses'. Among other things Harleyset him up in a house at Epsom, where he was able to enjoy thescenery and the social amenities.40

When Harley changed his policy and formed the tory ministryof 1710, he had no further use for Toland. An interview showed thattheir attitudes to peace with France were completely at variance.Toland was firm for the house of Hanover and the whig line of ' nopeace without Spain '. He told Harley that ' a clandestine negotiationwith France sounds very ill to English ears '. He urged Harley toabandon the high-flying tories and form a coalition of whigs andmoderate tories committed to the Hanoverian succession: ' insteadthen of your Priors and your Swifts you ought to despatch meprivately this month to Hanover'. He told Harley that he was histrue champion among the well-meaning whigs : ' two hundred poundsa year quarterly paid is the utmost I expect, for which I want nothingbut your commands to do acceptable service \41 Harley was deaf tothe plea and Toland had no further communication with him.

The tory attempts to come to terms with the pretender gaveToland the opportunity for an effective piece of propaganda, The artof restoring, in which he drew a parallel between Harley and GeneralMonk, who had abandoned the commonwealth and restored a Stuartking. The pamphlet was reprinted ten times in the crucial year of

40 Elisha Smith to Thomas Hearne, 23 June 1706 (Bodl., Rawl. MSC 146, f. 47); Toland to Harley, 16 May 1707 (H.M.C., Portland MSS,iv, 408-10); Toland, Description of Epsom (1711).

41 Toland to Harley, 7 Dec. 1711 and c. 1712 {Portland MSS, v,126-7, 259-60).

42 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-17301714, during which the succession was in the balance. Toland wasmuch concerned about the effect of tory policy on Ireland, wherepolitical feeling ran high over the prospects of the pretender. Hedeplored the signs he saw there of a catholic revival ' to the inexpress-ible terror of the protestants who are in daily fear of a massacre \42

He wrote several pieces in support of the Hanoverian line, but doesnot seem to have got anything from the whig ministers of George I.In the last years of his life his chief patron was an Irish ' common-wealthman', Robert Molesworth, a Dublin graduate who had madea name for himself by attacking the autocratic monarchy ofDenmark.43 Toland edited Shaftesbury's letters to Molesworth. Healso took a hand in opposing the declaratory act, the sixth of George I,by which the English parliament asserted its legislative and judicialpower in Irish affairs.44

Toland's political writings were interspersed with a number ofpieces on speculative and religious subjects. Letters to Serena,published in 1704, might be described as ' the intelligent woman'sguide to rationalism '. Serena was George I's sister, and herself queenof Prussia. Toland addressed three letters to her: on the rise ofprejudice, pagan ideas of immortality, and the origins of idolatry.He confined his arguments to pagan thought and made no overtcriticism of Christianity, but the trend of his argument was certainlyrationalist. He had some hard things to say of university education :' the university is the most fertile nursery of prejudices, whereof thegreatest is that we think there to learn everything, when in realitywe are taught nothing . . . but our comfort is that we know as muchas our masters, who affect the speech and barbarous jargon whichcommonly has no signification; and the main art that fits theirdisciples to take their degrees is to treat of very ordinary matters invery extraordinary terms \45 His exposition was accompanied by aremarkable flood of quotations from Greek and Roman authors, andwas made the occasion for a fine show of learning. The book alsocontains two letters addressed to others, in which Toland attacked theideas of Descartes and Spinoza. He asserted that motion is an essentialattribute of matter, and denied Descartes's view that matter is a dead

42 The grand mystery laid open (1714), p . 4 .43 K. Danaher and J. G. Simms, The Danish force in Ireland, i6go-i,

pp 6-11; Robbins, op. cit., pp 88-133.44 Reasons most humbly offered to the honourable house of commons

(1720).45 Letters to Serena, p. 7.

John Toland (16 70-1722), a Donegal Heretic 43lump until it is stirred into activity by a power external to itself.Toland's concept of the unity of mover and moved led him on topantheism. In his next work, Socinianism truly stated, he declaredhimself a pantheist, a word that he seems to have been the first to use.

Adeisidaemon—the man without superstition, which was writtenin Latin and published in Holland in 1709, purported to vindicateLivy from the charge of superstition and argued that superstition wasas dangerous to the state as atheism, if not more so. It aroused muchhostility on the continent and was banned by papal decree. He sent acopy of it to Leibniz, who replied with some caution: it was quite rightto attack superstition as long as it was clearly distinguished from truereligion, otherwise religion might be involved in the downfall ofsuperstition; he hoped that Toland would do as much to proclaimthe truth as he had done to reject what was false. Leibniz's ownposition was that God was over and apart from the natural world, andhe was disturbed by Toland's frequent references to the pantheisticideas of early philosophers. Toland thanked Leibniz for his candidremarks, but replied that he proposed to reprint his Adeisidaemonwithout alteration.40

The suspicions of Toland's critics were confirmed by the public-ation in 1718 of Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile and MahometanChristianity. His admiration for Islam earned him the title of' Mahomet's solicitor general \47 The ' Mahometan Christianity ' towhich he referred in Nazarenus was ' the gospel of Barnabas', amanuscript shown to him in Holland, which was in fact a forgery ofnot earlier than the fifteenth century written in Italian by a convertto Islam. Toland brought it to the notice of Prince Eugene of Savoy,to whom the owner presented it.48 Nazarenus also contained anaccount of an Irish manuscript of the four gospels in Latin, whichwas one of the manuscripts included in a celebrated theft from theroyal library in Paris. The thief brought it to Holland and allowedToland to study it for several months. It had been thought to be inAnglo-Saxon characters, but Toland saw that the characters wereIrish and that a colophon in Irish showed that the manuscript hadbeen written at Armagh by a monk named Maolbrigte. He informed

46 Leibniz to Toland, 30 Apr. 1709; Toland to Leibniz, 14 Feb. 1710{Collection, ii, 383-94).

47 Toland, Tetradymus (1720), p. xix.48 L. L. Rigg, The gospel of Barnabas (1907). The manuscript is now

in the Austrian National Library.


Harley, who bought it for £20; it is now in the British Museum.49

Toland's account of the manuscript was accompanied by a ' summaryof the ancient Irish Christianity before the papal corruptions andusurpations, and the reality of the Keldees (an order of lay religious)against the two last bishops of Worcester'. The Culdees—ceili De,a term which Toland renders ' espoused to God '—were active in thereform movement of the Irish church in the eighth and ninth centuries.Toland was apparently justified in criticising Bishops Stillingfleet andLloyd, who had called them ' a fiction ' and ' a monkish dream '.50

This was accompanied by a vigorous disquisition on the historiographyof Scotland. He criticised a number of historians on the ground thatthey put the Irish settlement in Scotland as late as 503 A.D. Stani-hurst, says Toland, ' hated the Scots for being protestants, and sowould neither allow them an early beginning nor an early Christianity.The great Ussher took up the cudgels on behalf of his uncle Stanihurst,not on the score of religion . . . but of family. . . . O'Flaherty, outof complaisance perhaps to some of his patrons, is unquestionably inthe wrong '. Toland thought there was more to be said for the Scottishhistorians, Buchanan and Mackenzie, though he was not blind to thepatriotic prejudices that led them to exaggerate the antiquity of theIrish presence in Scotland. Modern historians are not on Toland'sside in the controversy.51 Nazarenus evoked a number of replies andwas later translated into French.

Toland's most eccentric work was Pantheistic on, written in Latinand published in 1720, the author being styled Janus Junius Eogan-esius—Janus Junius the man of Inishowen. He gives a peculiarexplanation for the pen-name: ' Janus Junius is the name that wasgiven me at the font, but which for brevity's sake was quickly

49 The manuscript is Harleian 1802 and was written in 1138,though Toland tried to make out that it was much older (B.M., Cat. Ir.MSS, ii, 428-32).

50 Nazarenus, pt ii, p. 51. For the Culdees see Kenney, Sources,pp 468-71. Modern scholars render the term * clients of God ', butToland's interpretation was also that of Charles O'Conor of Belanagare,Dissertation on the . . . Scots in North-Britain (1766), p. 34. W. Nicolson,Irish historical library (1724), pp xxix-xxxii, criticised Toland's rendering.

51 Nazarenus, pt ii, pp 43-50. The controversy was continued inO'Conor's edition of O'Flaherty's Ogygia vindicated (1775), which makesno reference to Toland. According to the most recent opinion, ' historyknows nothing of any settlement of Scots in Scotland earlier than about500' (G. Donaldson, The early Scottish monarchy, p. io, 1967).


converted into John . . . I was called, however, by this name atfirst in the school roll every morning till the other boys made suchgame about it (to use this boyish phrase) that the master himselfordered John to be called for the future. Eoganesius is formed . . .from the peninsula where I was born.'52 In Pantheistic on a reasonedstatement of the pantheist position was followed by a scheme forSocratic clubs. There was a regular liturgy for secret meeetings.With rubrics and responses, it had all the signs of a parody of churchservices and gave great offence. It was also taken as a model formasonic movements, particularly in France, where manuscript copiesof Pantheisticon were widely circulated.53

In his last years Toland's chief support was from Molesworth,whose letters are in a tone of affectionate solicitude. But this supportgave Toland little more than a bare subsistence in a carpenter's houseat Putney, where his library was stacked on chairs.54 He was a martyrto rheumatism and in the spring of 1722 was attacked by jaundice.He died a few days later, leaving an epitaph, which seems never tohave been committed to stone: ' Here lieth John Toland who, bornnear Derry in Ireland, studied young in Scotland and Holland, which,growing riper, he did also at Oxford. And, having more than onceseen Germany, spent his age of manhood in and about London. Hewas an assertor of liberty, a lover of all sorts of learning, a speaker ofIrish, but no man's follower or dependent. Nor could frowns orfortune bend him to decline from the ways he had chosen. His spiritis joined with its ethereal father, from whom it originally proceeded.His body, yielding likewise to nature, is laid again in the lap of itsmother. But he is frequently to rise himself again, yet never to bethe same Toland again. If you would know more of him, search hisworks.'55

He was a man of great gifts and remarkable courage, whosevanity and indiscretion made him a ready target for those who were

52 Toland to Bamham Goode, 30 Oct. 1720 (B.M., Add. MS 4295,f- 39v).

53 See A. Lantoine, Un precurseur da la franc-maqonnerie: JohnToland, suivi de la traduction du Pantheisticon (1927); I. O. Wade,The clandestine organisation and diffusion of philosophic ideas in Francefrom 1700 to 1J50 (1938).

54 Molesworth's letters are in Collection, ii, 484-94. The list ofToland's books is given in B.M., Add. MS 4295, f. 41.

55 Engl ish version in B.M. , Add . M S 4295, f. 76. T h e r e is also aLa t in version, in which h e claimed to know ten languages.

46 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730offended by his ideas, and lost him the support of many who wereattracted by his opinions. He never lost the sense of his Irish back-ground, though he reacted strongly against it. But he was also theproduct of renaissance humanism, the reformation and the scientificrevolution. He combed Greek and Roman writers for rationalisttheories of ethics and metaphysics. Giordano Bruno, the most daringof the sixteenth-century speculators, had a particular appeal for him.56

In the great political controversy of the seventeenth century he waswholeheartedly a commonwealthman. He lived in an age of transition,when traditional beliefs were giving way to scepticism, and he himselfmade a significant contribution to the process. His mode of thoughtand style of controversy have a modern ring in contrast to the argu-ments of some of his critics. He is clearly on our side of the dividingline that separates modern from medieval.

His name became a symbol for the movement away from ortho-doxy and respect for authority. Swift called him ' the great oracleof the anti-Christians'." Much of Berkeley's writing was directedagainst Toland's position. He does not refer to Toland by name, butattacks many of his characteristic arguments and ideas. It is not hardto identify the ' witty gentleman of our sect who was a great admirerof the ancient Druids': words put into the mouth of Alciphron whoplays the sceptic in Berkeley's dialogue.58

Toland's writings became quite widely known in western Europeas successive translations appeared in the course of the eighteenthcentury. Much of the comment was hostile, particularly in Hollandand Germany, but he became something of a hero to the Frenchintelligentsia. Voltaire spoke of him as ' a proud and independentsoul: born in poverty, he could have risen to fortune had he beenmore moderate \59 Holbach, who represented the extreme degree ofscepticism in pre-revolutionary France, based much of his thought onToland. Holbach translated the Letters to Serena and the matter-motion concept to be found in them has been described as having a

50 See ' An account of Jordan Bruno's book of the infinite universeand innumerable worlds' {Collection, i, 316-49).

57 ' Argument against abolishing Christianity ' in Swift, Works, ed.Temple Scott, iii, 18.

58 Berkeley, Works, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E, Jessop, iii, 176; G. A.Johnston, The development of Berkeley's thought, pp 36-40.

59 Quoted in N. L. Torrey, Voltaire and the English deists (1930),P- 15-


tremendous influence on him.60 Several of Toland's ideas wereborrowed and developed by Diderot.01

Interest in Toland has continued in both France and Germany,where a series of translations of his works and comments on his ideashas stretched into the present century. In the French Biographiegenerate more space is given to Toland than to Berkeley. Somerecollections of him survived in his native district. There were localtraditions in Inishowen of the Toland who ' had left the country,given up his religion and written against i t ' . He was ' Owen of thebooks ', through whose mouth it was the devil himself that spoke. Theprophet of rationalism was without honour in his own country.62

60 V. W. Topazio, D'Holbach's moral philosophy (1956), pp 39-41.G1 L. G. Crocker, The embattled philosopher (1955), pp 317, 320, 322.62 W. J. Doherty, Inis-Owen arid Tirconnell (1895), p. 150.

DUBLIN IN 1685

Acritical year for Dublin was 1685."* It was the year that Charles IIdied and James II came to the throne. The twenty-five yearsof Charles IFs reign had brought stability, prosperity and ex-

pansion within a predominantly protestant framework. The death ofCharles, the accession of his catholic brother James, and the recallof the great duke of Ormond appeared to mark the end of an era.It was a year of anxiety for protestants and of fluctuating hopes forcatholics. It was a time of transition that was to be followed by theuninhibitedly partisan policy of Tyrconnell, by the Jacobite war,and by the protestant liberation after William's victory at the Boyne.

By 1685 Dublin was no mean city. It was much the largest townin Ireland, and in these islands was second only to London. Therewas general agreement that its population had greatly increased since1660, but the estimates varied considerably. Church returns were aninadequate guide in a multi-religious society, and hearth-tax returnswere not much better. Sir William Petty came to put his trust in thebills of mortality, statistics of burials compiled by the corporationand supplied weekly to subscribers. The returns available between1682 and 1687 show that the burials were consistently over 2,000a year — a figure which Petty multiplied by thirty to give a populationof more than 60,000 for the city and its suburbs. His estimate wasthought too high by critics who preferred houses to funerals as abasis for statistics: the number of houses would give a populationof a little over 50,000.T Even at the lower figure the population hadalmost trebled since 1660.2 The rise in population was accompaniedby a rapid spread of buildings outside the old city limits — to the

* This paper was originally delivered in Trinity College, Dublin, on13 Feb. 1964, as a lecture in the O'Donnell series.

1 Burials were as follows: 1682 : 2,263; 1683-4 : 2,154; 1686-7 : 2,284;(figures for two summer quarters). According to Petty there were 6,400houses and 29,735 hearths in 1685; eight persons were reckoned to ahouse. Petty, Econ. writings, ii. 496, 534, 588; Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, v.610-12; Willoughby, Observations on the bills of mortality (N.L.I.MS 911).

2 In 1660 poll-tax returns were 8,780, representing a population twicethat number {Census of Ireland, c. I6$Q, p. 373).

5


north along the left bank of the river and in the grounds of St Mary'sAbbey; to the west in the earl of Meath's liberty in the neighbourhoodof the Coombe. By the end of Charles IFs reign more of the citywas outside the walls than inside them.8

The dispersal of population led to fears for the security of the cityand two military engineers were commissioned to report on the pro-vision of adequate defences. This resulted in the production of twomaps, the first made in 1673 by Bernard de Gomme and the secondin 1685 by Thomas Phillips.4 These maps give an excellent idea ofhow the built-up area expanded during Charles IPs reign. Gomme'smap of 1673 shows that there had already been considerable develop-ment to the east and south. Trinity College was now joined to thecity by plots laid out along College Green and Dame Street. To thenorth of the College there were some quite large houses on Lazy Hilland both sides of the road towards Ringsend were lined with smallerhouses. Stephen's Green had been laid out, and there were somehouses facing it on the north and west sides. Further to the west wasAungier Street. Development had also taken place along St Kevin'sStreet and to the south of St Patrick's Cathedral along New Street,which is still so called after three centuries. But the map shows thatby 1673 there had been little development north of the river. TheKing's inns was near the modern Four Courts. It was a large building,capable of holding King James's parliament. Most of the lawyerswere protestants, but there were some catholic barristers of distinction,among them Richard Nagle, Stephen Rice, Toby Butler and DenisDaly, all of whom came to the fore under the Jacobite regime. Infront of the King's Inns was a quay 300 yards long, the only oneon the north side of the river. Below that was a large creek calledthe Pill, and then came slob land, behind which were the park andgreen of St Mary's Abbey. The parish church was St Michan's, andthere were a few streets and lanes to either side of it — extensions ofthe old settlement of Oxmantown.

By the time Phillips made his map in 1685 there had been rapiddevelopment on the north side. Arran Quay (named after Ormond'sson), Ormond Quay and Jervis Quay (the modern Bachelor's Walk)had transformed that bank of the river. Charles Street, Capel Street

3 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, v. 202.4 Gomme's map is in the Dartmouth collection at Greenwich; N.L.I,

has a photostat. Phillips's map is in the Ormond collection in N.L.I.(MS 3137).

Dublin in 1685 51

and Jervis Street now ran northwards from the quays and werecrossed by Mary Street and Abbey Street. The Pill had been filledin and the Ormond market stood on the site. Much of the north bankwas still unreclaimed, but the corporation had recently ordered asurvey of the strand from Mabbot's mill to the Furlong of Clontarf.This area was to be divided into 152 lots to be drawn for out of a hatby members of the corporation; each lot was to be given out on areclamation lease at a rent of a shilling a year.5 The records of thecorporation at this period are full of payments for the right toreclaim land and develop waste ground. The new areas suffered fromwater-logging and cellars were often flooded in winter.0 The timberedbuildings known as cage-work were giving way to brick and stone.The chapter of St Patrick's in leasing an orchard on St Bride's Streetspecified that the lessees should build handsome convenient housesof brick and stone, three stories high and of like form with balconies.7

An important development on the south side was in the land of Tiband Tom, to the west of Graf ton Street. This was developed by abrewer named William Williams, who laid out William Street andbuilt the Clarendon Market. The old Thingmote near St Andrew'sChurch had recently been leased out for levelling.8

A good indication of the progress of the city is to be found in thebuilding of bridges. Before 1670 there was only one bridge — theold bridge on the site of the modern Father Mathew bridge abovethe Four Courts. In that year a new bridge was built 600 yardsupstream. This innovation was a point of dispute in city politics;the opposition apparently encouraged the apprentices to riot andbreak up the bridge, which was consequently known as Bloody Bridge.;)By 1685 there were three more bridges. The first to be built wasEssex Bridge, leading to Capel Street and called after the viceroy,Arthur Capel, earl of Essex. Higher up the river came Arran Bridgeat the end of Arran Quay and Ormond Bridge joining FishambleStreet to Ormond Quay.

The new bridges improved communication with the developingnorth side, but they were an obstruction to boats coming up the river.For most of 1685 Essex Bridge was kept open for boats and closed

5 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, v. 328.6 N.L.I., MS 911, p. 19.7 R.S.A.I. Jn., lxv. 34.8 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, v. 87, 261, 305.9 Ibid., iv. 53; Cal. S.P. dom., i6yi, pp. 383, 388, 400.


to road traffic as the drawbridge was out of order.10 Ormond Bridgebegan as a wooden affair without a drawbridge, high enough to letboats pass under it. To prevent people falling over the side the sheriffof 1682 provided railings at the cost to himself of £14; in return hewas given the privilege of putting up apple stalls on either side of thebridge. But the railings were pulled down and stolen so often thatit was decided to scrap the wooden bridge altogether and put up astone one with a drawbridge. The apple stalls were to stay and theirproprietor was to be responsible for working the drawbridge. One ofOrmond's last acts before he left early in 1685 was to place a stonewith his name and the date on the new bridge.11

Leading citizens lived in many parts of the city, often side by sidewith shops. Phillips's map shows the Ussher and Molyneux housesnear the old bridge and Domvile's house on St Bride Street. Pettylived in St George's Lane and Dudley Loftus on the Blind Quay.The modern Eustace and Anglesea Streets are called after the housesof those families. Charlemont and Clancarty houses were on CollegeGreen, with booksellers' shops close by. Lawyers lived in Hoey's Courtnear St Werburgh's and Swift was born there. Private houses as wellas shops were distinguished by signs, among them being the blackspread eagle, the holy lamb and the frying pan.12 As new buildingsspread on the outskirts rents fell at the centre in Skinner Row andCastle Street.13 The north strand — a pleasant place for driving orwalking — become fashionable and one of the best new houses therewas leased to Lord Chancellor Porter for £100 a year.14

An English comment on the Dublin of this period was that mostof the houses and streets were very regular and modern and the peopleas fashionable as anywhere. Most of the houses had gardens and thestandard of cultivation met with Viceroy Clarendon's approval:* the sallet are very good and the roots generally much better thanours in England; asparagus here are very good, large and green \15

Dudley Loftus complained that clothes, equipages and house furniturewere five times as expensive as they had been before the war. But,judging from a decorator's bill of 1685, Dublin craftsmen seem tohave been very moderate in their charges. Among the items are

10 Monday book, pp. 150-1 (Gilbert MSS, Pearse St).11 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, v. 351; Cal. S.P. dom., 1684-5, P- 3°5«12 Gilbert, Hist, of Dublin, ii. 117, 310, 321; iii. 18, 184; Ch. Ch. MSS.18 N.L.I., MS 911, p. 26.14 Clarendon corr., i. 368; ii. 141, 150.15 Ibid., i. 403; Story, Impartial history, p. 91.

Dublin in 1685 53

' colouring the door in the dining-room and the balcony door, 65.;colouring the cornice in the drawing-room and the two doors andthe bottom board, 14J.; whitening the dining-room ceiling and thedrawing-room and parlour ceilings and the stairs, 95.' 18.

Immigration was responsible for much of the increase in popu-lation. An act of 1662 for the encouragement of protestant strangershad a life of eleven years, during which a limited number of French,Dutch and Germans came to Dublin, most of them merchants,though there were also some mariners and craftsmen.17 The newcorporation rules, introduced in 1672, provided that foreigners, aswell others as protestants, who were merchants, artificers, seamen orotherwise skilled could become freemen of the city.18 A fair numberof foreigners took advantage of this and by the end of Charles II'sreign there was, in particular, a considerable Huguenot community.Twenty years earlier a chapel in St Patrick's had been given to themas a French church, and its records show the community's progress.In 1685 there were 29 baptisms and 33 burials recorded in the Frenchchurch, which suggests that there were several hundred Huguenots.19

But the greater part of the immigration from outside Ireland wasfrom England. It was estimated in 1687 tnat at least 35,000 Englishhad come to Ireland in the previous fifteen years. Many of thesehad come to Dublin, where the woollen industry7 in particular hadattracted immigrants from the English west country. One of thearrivals was Anthony Sharp, a Gloucestershire quaker who wasattracted by the cheapness of Irish wool, settled in the liberties, andbecame one of the most prominent figures in Dublin life.20 By 1685there were several thousand workers in Dublin engaged in spinningand carding wool. There was also a linen industry at Chapelizod,which made tapestry as well, and we hear of the newly establishedmanufacture of crimson velvet.21 Gomme's map shows a glass housenear the site of Westland Row station.

The city also had a considerable catholic population, which wouldbe needed to supply the labour force for a busy seaport and thriving

16 Tanner letters, p. 485; N.L.I. Sarsfield papers.17 B.M., Eg. MS 77.18 Ir. stat., iii. 205-12.19 J. D. La Touche, Register of French conformed churches in Dublin.20 N.L.I., MS 7795; A letter from a gentleman in Ireland, 1677;

O. Goodbody, 'Anthony Sharp' in Dublin Hist. Rec, xiv. 12-19.21 Clarendon corr., i. 321, 528; A. K. Leask, 'History of tapestry-

making' in R.S.A.I. ]n., lviii. 91.


centre of trade and manufacture. Petty estimated that the catholicpopulation had more than doubled between 1671 and 1682. At thebeginning of 1689 Tyrconnell said that half the population of Dublinwas catholic, but in 1685 the proportion would certainly have beenlower, perhaps about a third.22

Why did this extraordinary increase in population take placeduring the quarter of a century following the restoration? Severalreasons can be suggested. In the first place Dublin was the adminis-trative and legal focus of a great deal of activity at a time when theownership of most of Ireland was at stake and courts and officeswere busy with rival claims of catholics and protestants. It is truethat parliament had not met since 1666, but commissions of one kindor another were constantly occupied with the land settlement, and theviceroys were in residence for most of the time. Ormond kept abrilliant court and set a standard of expenditure that must have beengood for trade. Many of the upper classes had town houses as wellas country seats. A new and socially ambitious class of rising gentrylooked to Dublin for skilled craftmanship and imported consumergoods. It was estimated that the amount of such goods ' must beprodigious to supply not only the necessities but the vanity and luxuryof so opulent and populous a kingdom, the rate of whose expenseswas in no way regulated by the instinct of thrift \23 Its position inthe middle of the east coast and a network of roads gave Dublinan advantage over the southern ports as a distributing centre forthe country.

The general trade of Ireland had increased and Dublin had thelargest share of it. Petty estimated that in 1685 Dublin was responsiblefor nearly forty per cent of the total customs revenue.24 It is remarkablethat it should have established this position in spite of a very badharbour. There was a bar at the mouth of the LifFey, and shipshad to moor outside Ringsend in the Salmon Pool or even further outat Pool Beg. Passengers were landed at Ringsend and driven at afurious pace across the sands in low-backed cars known as Ringsendcoaches. Cargoes were unloaded into gabbards or barges and broughtup the LifTey at high tide. From Gomme's map it appears that theriver was quite impassable at low water. He marks a low-water depth

22 Pet ty, op . cit., ii. 4 9 8 ; B.M., Add . M S 28053, f. 386.23 G. Phillips, The interest of England in the trade of Ireland, 1689,

p. 22.24 Political arithmetic, 1685/6, by Sir W.P. (P.R.O., S.P. Ire. 63/351,

ff. 319-20); this does not appear among Petty's published writings.

Dublin in 1685 55

of only one foot at a point opposite Trinity College. Cargoes hadto be brought up to the custom house just below Essex Bridge.

Most of the trade was with England, coal, drapery, hops andtobacco being among the largest imports. Much of the coal camefrom Whitehaven, whose colliery masters kept a fleet of sixty shipsto supply the Dublin market. In all, over 30,000 tons of coal wasimported in 1685. Dublin itself seems to have been the biggest con-sumer, and Petty used this as a gauge of the increasing prosperityof the city. The largest items of export to England were wool andfriezes, which were sent to west country ports such as Bideford andBarnstaple. Chester was at this time chiefly used for the passenger?.«nd packet trade, and Liverpool had eclipsed it for general commercialtraffic. There was a considerable export of friezes to France and theLow Countries, but the legitimate export of wool was restricted toEngland. Instructions of 1685 renewed a ' strict and severe prohibition 'on the transport of wool to foreign parts and deplored the frequentevasion of the rule. Direct imports from foreign countries includedtimber from the Baltic, and spices, wine and oranges from Spain.Brandy, wine and salt were the chief imports from France.25 In 1681the act had lapsed that imposed restrictions on direct Irish importsfrom the plantations, and in the following years large quantities oftobacco were imported directly from America. After the renewal ofthe act in the summer of 1685 this trade was drastically reduced.But the merchants seem to have been forewarned, as the Dublinfigures for direct tobacco imports reached a peak in that year. Thenext year they had dropped to nothing.26

One of the restoration viceroys observed that much of Dublin'strade was carried in Dutch ships. They were more suited to thechoppy Irish Sea than English ships, and this was given as the reasonfor using two Dutch-built ships as mail boats.27 Dublin Bay was con-sidered highly dangerous and ships were often wrecked. There weretwo lighthouses on Howth Head for which dues were at first collected

25 J. U. Nef, Rise of the English coal industry, i. 71, 392; Cal. S.P.dom., 1685, p. 112. Detailed figures for exports and imports of the chiefIrish ports for 1683-6 are in B.M., Add. MS 4759. I am grateful toDr L. M. Cullen for drawing my attention to this MS and for supplyingfurther information on the trade of Dublin.

26 L. A. Harper, The English navigation laws, p. 397; the acts were22 and 23 Charles II, c. 26 and 1 James II, c. 17.

27 Essex letters, i. 294; V. Barbour, 'Dutch and English merchantshipping in the seventeenth century' in Econ. Hist. Rev., ii. 276.

5 6 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730from all shipping, foreign vessels being charged double. The contractorswere then given £500 a year to compensate them for letting Englishships off the charge.28 Gomme called the southern Howth lighthousethe Candlestick. He also showed on his map a perch or warning polenear the tip of the South Bull. Another hazard was the indiscriminateexcavation for ballast. A proposal of 1685 for the establishment of aballast office referred to the great damage done in this way to theharbour ' which occasions the driving and rolling of great quantitiesof loose sand into the main channel to the spoil of the harbour andthe hazard of many tall ships running aground \29

The centre of government administration was the castle, whichwas also the ordinary residence of the viceroy. With its four towersenclosing a clutter of residential and administrative buildings and aforest of chimneys—125 in all — the castle was the subject ofconstant criticisms. There were two serious fires there in Charles II'sreign. Even after the damage had been repaired, James's first viceroycomplained that it was ' the worst lodging a gentleman ever lay in:never comes a shower of rain but it breaks into the house, so thereis perpetual tiling and glazing \30 The privy council met in thecouncil chamber in Essex Street next to the Custom House. TheFour Courts, now in the last stages of decay, were in Christ Churchyard. The only government building of distinction was the newhospital for old soldiers at Kilmainham, which was almost ready atthe beginning of 1685, though the chapel was still unfinished andthere was no tower.

The pride of the corporation was the new Tholsel, or municipalbuilding, which stood opposite the Four Courts at the corner ofSkinner's Row. It appears in Malton's views of Dublin as a somewhatbaroque building; it was 100 feet high, with a cupola, a clock, and,set in niches in the front wall, oversize statues of Charles I andCharles II. The statues still survive and can be seen at forbiddinglyclose quarters in Christ Church crypt. No expense was spared on theembellishment and furnishing of the interior. The walls were panelledin Danzig oak and the chairs upholstered with Turkey work.31 Twoseparate chambers were provided, one for the senior members — thelord mayor, aldermen and those who had held office as sheriffs —

28 Cal. S.P. dom., I6JI, p. 479; ibid., 1676-j, pp. 58-9.29 Ibid., 1685, pp. 364-5.80 Petty, op. cit., i. 143; Clarendon corr., ii. 47.31 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, v. xxxiii.

Dublin in 1685 57

and the other for the ninety-six members of the common council.By a system of election peculiar to Dublin the common councillorswere chosen every three years by the guilds. The corporation had akeen sense of its own importance as representing the second city inhis majesty's dominions. Since the restoration the mayor had becomelord mayor and the ceremonial was closely modelled on that ofLondon. The inauguration of the new lord mayor was a colourfulaffair, with gowns of violet and scarlet and suitable renderings fromthe city musicians.32 In 1685 the lord mayor was Sir Abel Ram, whowas both a city financier and also a member of the new landed gentry.He had succeeded to the Wexford estates acquired by his grandfather,who was bishop of Ferns. At the same time he was a banker withpremises in Castle Street and had for several years been master ofthe goldsmiths' guild.

The municipal records show a constant, but rather ineffective,concern for the sanitary and other public needs of the growing city.The time-honoured system of water supply from the Dodder had tobe extended in Charles IPs reign. A large cistern was set up at StJames's gate, from which leaden pipes were laid along Thomas Street;when the money ran short pipes of elm wood were used instead.There was a marble conduit in the corn market with the arms of thecity and an inscription in letters of gold ' John Smith, lord mayor,1678 '. The needs of the north bank were met by laying a pipe overthe old bridge. In spite of these efforts there were complaints ofscarcity, and strict orders were passed against mill races, the diversionof supply, and private selling of water. Municipal water rates werefixed, but the collection was farmed out to a contractor.33 Municipalfire-engines were provided in 1670 and orders for hooks, ladders andbuckets in every parish. There were many chimney fires; orders werepassed in 1685 for the regular sweeping of chimneys, and a fine oftwenty shillings was prescribed whenever a chimney went on fire.There was no system of public lighting; every fifth householder wassupposed to hang out a lantern between six and nine on dark nightsin the winter. The paving of the streets was the subject of bittercomplaint; bad workmanship was blamed for their condition andthere were proposals for a paviers' corporation on the London model.

82P.R.O.I., MS M2549.33 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, iv. 413, 461-2; v. 345, 490; Observations of

Thomas Dingley (N.L.I., MS 392); H. F. Berry, 'The water supply ofindent Dublin' in R.S.A.I. Jn., xxi. 557-73.


One of the troubles was brewers' drays —- slide-cars with iron runnersin place of wheels — which broke up the pavement. The corporationlicensed hackney coaches, fifty being considered enough to servethe needs of the city and liberties. The licence fees were earmarkedfor the provision of a workhouse. Beadles were appointed ' for theprevention of the many idle beggars wherewith all parts of the cityhave been filled'. There were two pest houses on the island ofClontarf to deal with infectious diseases.34

There was what was called a hospital in Back Lane, but it seemsto have been a mere repository for the old and feeble, and there wasno regular provision for the care of the sick. The practice of medicinein Dublin and for seven miles round it was controlled by the Collegeof Physicians, the chief begetter of which had been Dr John Stearne,the first professor of medicine in Trinity College. In 1685 PatrickDun was its president for the fifth year in succession. The charter ofthe College of Physicians imposed no religious bar and several catholicshad been elected to fellowships during Charles IFs reign. Surgeonswere less highly esteemed and were grouped with barbers in theFraternity of Barbers and Chirurgeons of the guild of St MaryMagdalene. James II was soon to give them a new charter, whichadded periwig makers to the mixture.35

The guild system was still an important feature of the city's life.The guild of the Holy Trinity, or merchants' guild, tried withqualified success to maintain a monopoly of trade. By the end ofCharles IPs reign this guild had more than 400 brethren. They kepta common cellar and warehouse in Winetavern Street to facilitatetheir dealings with the outside world. Oaths were prescribed thatrestricted membership to protestants, but catholics could becomequarter brothers and this gave them some of the advantages of guildmembership. There were many craft guilds with similar rules. Amongthem were the goldsmiths, the tallow chandlers, and St Luke's guildof cutlers, painter-stainers and stationers. The latest addition was theBlessed Virgin Mary's guild of saddlers, coach and coach-harnessmakers, bridle makers and wheelwrights.36

The leisure of Dubliners was well provided for. There were tenniscourts in Winetavern Street and St John's Lane; the remains of the

84 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, iv. 493, 504; v. 32, 205, 207, 252-3, 357.85 J . D . H . Widdess, History of the Royal College of Physicians of

Ireland, pp. 1-32.86 J. J. Webbe, Guilds of Dublin; Cal S,P. dom., i6jJ-8, p. 451.

Dublin in 1685 59

latter are still to be seen. There was a magnificent bowling green northof the river to the west of Queen Street and a bowling alley near theBlind Quay on the south side. Plays were performed in the theatrein Smock Alley, which was the responsibility of the master of therevels, who was at pains to point out how much at a loss he was frommaintaining a company of excellent actors. Stephen's Green was laidout with trees and the corporation had just ordered sixty-nine treesto be planted in Oxmantown Green. For thirsty citizens there werei,180 alehouses supplied by ninety-one brewers.37

Dublin University had made a good recovery from its troubles inthe middle of the century. It had increased its income as a result ofthe restoration land-settlement and the general prosperity of thecountry. The fellows of the college included some able men. Theprovost, whose post was worth almost £400 a year, was Dr RobertHuntingdon, who had recently replaced his better-known predecessor,Narcissus Marsh.38 Marsh and Huntingdon were both oriental scholarsof distinction. Swift's tutor, St George Ashe, and Edward Smith wereboth prominent members of the Dublin Philosophical Society andboth later became bishops. A new fellow elected in 1685 was JohnHall, a Kerryman who championed the Irish language and was com-mended as having ' no equal for protecting the Gaels and improvingtheir ways \39 The term after his election Hall was made keeper ofthe library. The growing numbers had already made both the chapeland the dining hall inadequate in Marsh's time. By the end of 1684a new chapel had been built and consecrated: the painted and gildedorgan had cost £120. The student body must have numbered nearly400. Marsh had earlier put it at 340 and said it was increasing rapidlyeach year. The academic ye?tr 1684-5 was a peak year with 101matriculations. Among them was a future provost, Benjamin Pratt.Swift was in his junior sophister year.40

Protestant schooling was quite well provided for by the twocathedral schools, the new foundation of King's Hospital and a numberof private teachers. St Patrick's School seems to have been flourishing.No less than twelve of those who matriculated in 1684-5 wereeducated under the rod of Mr Torway, its headmaster. King's Hospital

"Gilbert, op. cit., i. 53, 157; Cal. S.P. dom., 1682, p. 621; Cal. anc.rec. Dublin, v. 212, 321; Petty, op. cit., i. 146.

38 Clarendon corr., i. 256.39 G. Quin, 'MS ... for John Hall', in Hermathena, liii. 127.40 Stubbs, History of the University of Dublin, p. 114; T.C.D.,

Muniment Room MSS and Registers,

60 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730in Oxmantown, which had absorbed the old city free school, seemsto have been primarily designed for poor boys, nominated by bene-factors. The most successful of the private teachers was WilliamBirkbeck, eight of whose pupils matriculated in that year. GeorgeToilet, a member of the Philosophical Society, had a high reputationas a mathematical teacher.41 Much less is known of catholic education,but we hear a little later on of Patrick Bourke, teacher of mathematics,who asked the Jacobite corporation to establish a free school forteaching that subject on a vocational basis.42

The centre of intellectual life in the city was the PhilosophicalSociety, which in 1685 had Sir William Petty as president and WilliamMolyneux as secretary. Meetings were held in the Crow's Nest offDame Street, where a surprising variety of subjects was discussed.The items for 1685 ranged from the dissection of a ' monstrous doublecat ' to the testing of pulvis fulminans, a kind of gunpowder plus.Most of the members were of settler stock, but the names of Foley,Keogh and Houlaghan are racier of the soil. At leasi one member,Mark Bagot, was a catholic. The society had international links. Itcorresponded with the Oxford Society and the London Royal Society,which published Dublin papers in its proceedings. One of the memberswas a Dutch doctor named Jacob Sylvius who had settled in Dublinand received the M.D. degree from the university. His magnum opus,Novissima idea de febribus, was published in Dublin in 1686. Sylviuswas a friend of the celebrated Peter Bayle, with whom the societyexchanged greetings. At the same time the society took an activeinterest in Ireland and things Irish. Among the proceedings of 1685was an account by St George Ashe of a ' strange flowing back of theriver Shannon', a report from Edward Smith on the petrifyingqualities of Lough Neagh, and a communication about the discoveryof cremation urns in county Cork.48

The intellectual curiosity of the society was matched by thenumber of booksellers and publishers. The oddest of the bookspublished in 1685 were the rival almanacs of Bourke and Dr Whalley.In this year also appeared the short-lived Dublin Newsletter, printedby J. Ray on College Green for Robert Thornton at the Leather

41 Lawlor, Fasti of St Patrick's, p. 254; F. R. Falkiner, Foundation ...of Charles II, p. 70; C. McNeill, Tanner letters, p. 496.

42 Cal. anc. rec. Dublin, v. 462.43 Minutes and register of the Philosophical Society (B.M., Add. MS

4811).

Dublin in 1685 61

Bottle in Skinner Row.44 Robert Boyle sent over from London thesheets of the Irish bible to be bound and issued in Dublin, whereprinters had no means of printing the Irish language.45

Religion played an important part in the life of the city. Thechurch of Ireland was recovering from the wars and the effects ofCromwell's iconoclasm. During Charles IPs reign St Patrick's cathedralwas reroofed and provided with a new altar resplendent in paint andgilt; a new organ was completed in 1685. In the same year a contractwas made to restore the choir pews and the archbishop's throne withDanzig oak and to floor the choir with black and white marble.46

Christ Church also spent heavily on improvements to the choir andhad recently invested in a four-faced chiming clock. The two cathedralsjoined in raising money for new sets of bells, six for Christ Churchand eight for St Patrick's. Both were cast by the same founder fromobsolete canon presented by Charles II. The Christ Church tenorbell tolled curfew each night, with the result that by 1685 it wasbadly cracked and had to be replaced in the following year. Co-operation between the cathedrals extended to sharing a choir.47 Therewas one new parish church, St Andrew's, which was called the roundchurch, though in Gomme's map it looks more like a turnip. WhenLord Clarendon arrived as viceroy he was able to assure the archbishopof Canterbury that the Dublin churches were in very good order andfor the most part very well served and ' infinitely crowded' withworshippers.48

The catholic church had its ups and downs in Charles II's reign.Even during the popish plot agitation there were protestant complaintsthat the mass houses which before were kept in private ' are now aspublicly frequented as our churches'. This was followed by a driveto prohibit masses and expel Jesuits and dignitaries of the catholicchurch.49 In 1685 the catholic archbishop was Patrick Russell, who.had succeeded Peter Talbot. Russell had often had to go undergroundfor self-protection. Another of the Dublin catholic clergy was singledout for his courage in remaining continually in the heart of the

41 N.L.I, has many of the issues for 1685.45 R. E. Maddison, ' Robert Boyle and the Irish bible' in John

Rylands Library Bull, xli. 80-101 (1958).*QR.S.A.I. Jn., xl. 229; lxv. 49-72; Mason, History of St Patrick's,

p. 202.47 Ch. Ch. MSS; R.S.A.I. ]n., xl. 155-9; Petty> °P- cit., i. 164.48 Clarendon corr., i. 407.49 Cal, S.P. dom.y 1679-80, pp. 18, 113.


city.50 The principal catholic church was in Francis Street; it had beenrebuilt by the Franciscans on the site of an old convent, but in thecircumstances of the popish plot agitation had been handed over tothe secular clergy. 1685 transformed the situation for catholics. Duringthat summer Archbishop Russell held a meeting in Dublin of thebishops of his province, and they requested the king to establish theearl of Tyrconnell in such authority as might secure them in theexercise of their functions. But the catholic church was still not fullyemancipated. Throughout that year the clergy refrained from wearingclerical dress in public. In the following year King James authorisedthe bishops to wear long black cassocks and cloaks, but they werestill not to wear pectoral crosses in public.51 Up to the time ofCharles II's death the official attitude to catholic churches was thatthey were not allowed, and that at most their existence might bewinked at. A priest who preached publicly in a surplice was sent forby the protestant Archbishop Marsh and warned not to repeat hismisdemeanour.52

Archbishop Marsh had an equally intolerant attitude to protestantdissenters and warned them not to use their public meeting houses.53

There were several of these and the protestant dissenters of Dublinseem to have formed a large community. The New Row and WoodStreet meeting houses had two ministers each. They, and their con-gregations, seem to have been of the English puritan tradition. TheCapel Street meeting house belonged to the synod of Ulster andevidently catered for the Scottish variety of presbyterian.54 There wereabout 200 quaker families in Dublin, divided into three meetings;one near Wormwood (or Ormond) gate, one in Bride Street, and onein Meath Street, where a new meeting house had just been completed.Quakers also fell under the disapproval of Archbishop Marsh, whohad recently committed Anthony Sharp and others to the Marshalseaprison. Of all the protestant groups the quakers were to enjoy mostfavour under James II.55

50 Renehan's collections on Ir. church hist., i. 229-30; Moran, Spicil.Oss., ii. 270.

51N. Donnelly, Short hist, of Dublin parishes, ii. 32; Renehan, i. 231;Clarendon corr.y i. 395.

52 #. M. C. Ormonde MSS, N.S., vii. 314.53 Ibid., p. 315.54 T. Witherow, Historical and literary memorials of presbyterians in

Ireland, i. 60, 81, 127; Records of presbyterian church.35 J. Rutty, Rise . . . of quakers, pp. 149-50; information supplied

by Mrs. O. Goodbody

Dublin in 1685 63The unexpected death of Charles II in February 1685 came as

a shock to the protestants of Dublin. They grieved over Ormond'srecall and feared the worst — that Richard Talbot would be hissuccessor. The following months were ominous, but not disastrous.Two reliable protestants, the archbishop of Armagh and LordGranard, held the government while the names of various Englishmenwere canvassed for the lord lieutenancy. But Talbot soon came overwith his new Tyrconnell title and a roving commission to meddle withthe army. Catholic commissions were given and protestant militiamendisarmed. Nerves were fraying, and in October 1685 there were riotsin the Dublin streets; the constables were overpowered and strongaction by the military was resorted to before order was restored.50

The year ended more cheerfully with the arrival of the new viceroy,Clarendon, the king's protestant brother-in-law. But the relief wasshort-lived and the situation for protestants deteriorated rapidly.

The Dublin of 1685 was a prosperous, and in some ways acivilised, city. But its prosperity was founded on too narrow a basisand was too greatly dependent on the support of an English govern-ment. It was the capital of a predominantly catholic country, butits administration was exclusively protestant, and catholics were asmall minority among its merchant and professional classes. Itsstrength had lain in the close links between its leading elements andthe ruling classes of Ireland and England. When those links werebroken and when the government of Charles and Ormonde wasreplaced by the unsympathetic policy of James and the active hostilityof Tyrconnell, a time of trouble began for Dublin. Flight and fearwere to be the experience of many of its protestant citizens untildeliverance came and they were able to resume, with an addedintolerance, their former predominance in the life of the city.

36 Cal. S.P. dom., 1685, P- 375-

THE JACOBITE PARLIAMENT OF 1689

I. INTRODUCTORYFor most of its long life the Irish parliament was a body that met

intermittently and exercised little influence. For nearly three cen-turies its legislative power was limited by Poynings' law, whichrequired that every bill should have been approved in advance bythe king and his English council. During the middle ages the parlia-ment represented only the Anglo-Norman colony; in the eighteenthcentury it represented only the Protestants. In the twenty-five yearsof Charles II's reign there was only a single parliament and, thoughthere was no legal bar to Catholic membership, in fact no Catholicsat in the house of commons during this parliament; for the lasteighteen years of the reign it did not meet at all.

James II's parliament of 1689 aroused much more interest thanpreceding parliaments had done. It was predominantly Catholic incomposition and included both Gaelic and ' old English ' elements;it was in this way more representative of the majority of the nationthan any other Irish parliament, though it was no more democraticthan were English parliaments of the period. Its house of commonsrepresented counties and cities or boroughs—two members for eachcounty and two for each city or borough, irrespective of size. Theelectorate for the counties were the holders of freehold land worthforty shillings a year. The electorate for cities and boroughsdepended on the terms of particular charters. In the largest groupthe mayor and council were the electoral body, but in a number ofboroughs the freemen were also included, and occasionally theinhabitants as a whole. From Charles II's time onwards there were150 two-member constituencies—thirty-two counties, 117 cities orboroughs (some of them very small indeed) and the University ofDublin.

A remarkable diversity of opinion has been expressed about theIrish parliament of 1689. Particularly during the nineteenth centuryit was the subject of much controversial writing. Thomas Davispraised it highly in articles that were later republished by GavanDuffy under the title of The patriot parliament of 1689. It wasfiercely attacked by Macaulay as ' deficient in all the qualities alegislature ought to possess.' Froude condemned it as unconstitu-tional and ill-timed. Lecky rallied to its defence; some of itsproceedings he found regrettable but understandable, others hepraised as liberal and enlightened.

In its own day the parliament was criticised from all points ofview. Williamite writers naturally challenged its authority andcastigated its proceedings. To them it was the ' pretended parlia-

6


ment,' an unconstitutional gathering of the rebellious supporters ofa fallen king. But contemporary Jacobite accounts were hardly lessunfavourable; they criticised it as ill-timed, as prejudicial to KingJames's prospects, and as failing to meet the demands of IrishCatholics.

We have, unfortunately, very incomplete material to help us todecide between these different opinions. The Williamite parliamentof 1695 ordered the proceedings of the Jacobite parliament to bedestroyed. We are therefore dependent for our information on theWilliamite accounts that were published while the parliament wasin session or soon after; on the memoirs compiled by King James'ssecretaries; on the correspondence of the French ambassador,M. d'Avaux; and on the opinions of the Irish chroniclers, Plunkettand O'Kelly. The fullest version of the proceedings is given byWilliam King, later Protestant archbishop of Dublin. He is a hostilewitness, but he was in Dublin at the time and some of his evidenceis corroborated by other accounts. The most objective of theWilliamite material is that which gives the names of the membersand the text of many of the acts.1

II. THE SUMMONING OF PARLIAMENTThe parliament was closely linked to the events of the English

revolution of 1688. James II, betrayed by his English army andunable to resist the invading forces of William of Orange, fled toFrance in December of that year. The greater part of Irelandremained loyal to him. Tyrconnell, the Catholic viceroy, showedmuch energy in organising an army and suppressing dissidentProtestants. He assured his king that he would find a welcome inIreland, and James after some hesitation accepted the invitation andreached Kinsale on 12 March 1689. On 24 March he arrived inDublin and next day issued a proclamation summoning parliamentfor 7 May.

The promptness of this decision calls for some comment. Eversince the accession of James II in 1685 there had been a demandon the part of Catholics for the repeal of the Acts of Settlement andExplanation which had been passed by an all-Protestant parliamentin 1662 and 1665. The declared object of these acts was to carry outCharles II's promises and to combine the reinstatement of Catholicswith the preservation of Cromwellian interests. In practice theyproduced a settlement heavily weighted on the Protestant side andregarded by Catholics as highly unsatisfactory. While he was stillon the throne of England James had given a number of assurancesthat the settlement would not be altered, but the demand continuedand with it a call for a parliament to alter the settlement and passother measures of Catholic relief. Tyrconnell had paved the way forsuch a parliament by remodelling the borough corporations which

1. The first three items in the list of sources on p. 82.

The Jacobite Parliament of 1689 67

would return most of the members. This was done by the quowarranto procedure (of which Charles II had made effective use inEngland); the crown demanded the surrender of town and citycharters and issued fresh ones, appointing new members of thecorporations by name. Previously the corporations had been whollyProtestant; now they all had Catholic majorities, although in anumber of them, notably Belfast, there were a substantial numberof Protestants. Members of corporations were, of course, not neces-sarily resident in the towns. Further preparations for holding aparliament in 1688 included the drafting of bills, among them onefor the modification (not the repeal) of the Acts of Settlement andExplanation. James's English advisers were opposed to upsettingan arrangement which was regarded as safeguarding the Englishinterest in Ireland, and no parliament had been sanctioned by thetime of William's invasion. The English revolution and the backingit found among Protestants in Ireland lent force to the Catholicdemand for a radical change of the land-settlement. It could beargued that such a change would strengthen support for the crownas well as meeting the claims of dispossessed Catholic landowners.

In his book The state of the Protestants William King states thatwhen parliament was summoned and the election writs sent outTyrconnell sent letters with them recommending the persons whomhe favoured, and that in most cases these persons were returned bythe compliance of the mayors and sheriffs in boroughs and counties.Such methods of packing a parliament were by no means unprece-dented, and King's account is probable enough. Such references asremain in corporation books to the return of members to this parlia-ment say nothing of any alternative candidates. There is in fact nomention of any contest except in Dublin city, where King says thatGerard Dillon, ' a most furious Papist,' failed to be elected becausehe had purchased an estate under the Act of Settlement and wastherefore presumed likely to oppose the repeal of the act. The listof the commons is set out in full in Thomas Davis's The patriotparliament from a reprint of a contemporary pamphlet and is ofconsiderable interest.

It shows that 230 members were returned out of the full quotaof 300; there were no county representatives for Donegal, Fermanaghand Londonderry, and a number of boroughs, mainly in Ulster,failed to make returns.1 King says that there were six Protestantsin the house. The two of whom he approved were the representativesof the University of Dublin, Sir John Meade and Joseph Coghlan,who had been with difficulty prevailed upon to stand:' the universitymust choose and it could not stand with their honour to choosePapists'—a reflection which suggests that Tyrconnell allowed theuniversity some liberty of election. Davis quotes King's estimate ofthe Protestant representation and regrets that he did not give the

1. box the list of members see Appendix A.


other names. A contemporary pamphlet says there were only fiveProtestants in the commons: Sir John Meade, Joseph Coghlan,Sir Thomas Crosby, Arthur [Brownlow], and Jeremy Donovan.Sir Thomas Crosby belonged to a well-known Kerry family and satfor that county; subsequently he had some difficulty in explainingaway his action to the Wilhamite authorities. Arthur Brownlowwas returned for Armagh county, but withdrew before theend of the session. He had an unusual background. His realname was Chamberlain, and on his father's side he belonged to an' old English ' family of county Louth. He inherited the estate andname of his mother's father, Sir William Brownlow of Lurgan, whohad married an O'Doherty lady from Inishowen. Arthur Brownlowhad been one of the few sheriffs approved of by Tyrconnell out ofthose selected by the previous viceroy, Lord Clarendon. He had agood knowledge of Irish and was a collector of manuscripts, hisprincipal treasure being the Book of Armagh. Jeremy Donovan satfor the borough of Baltimore, county Cork. He was the head of oneof the branches of a well-known Gaelic family, but had become aProtestant; the Williamite government, after starting proceedingsagainst him, decided to spare him on this ground. The sixthProtestant was Sir William Ellis, an Englishman who was Tyr-connell's secretary. He was one of four remarkable brothers whowere, respectively, a Protestant bishop, a Catholic bishop, a William-ite official, and a Jacobite official. He sat for the borough of St.Johnstown, county Longford.

Of the Catholic members, more than two-thirds bore Englishnames, and the house was much more representative of the ' oldEnglish ' than of the Gaelic Irish. Most of the well-known ' Pale 'families—such as Fitzgerald, Dillon and Nugent—were represented.The Gaelic members included Charles O'Kelly, who sat for countyRoscommon and later wrote a history of the war under the curioustitle of the Destruction of Cyprus. Two O'Reillys sat for countyCavan; an O'Brien and a MacNamara represented county Clare.One of the Tyrone members was Gordon O'Neill, Sir Phelim's son.Other famous Gaelic names are scattered through the lists. Thehouse contained some able lawyers, including Sir Richard Nagle(who was elected speaker), Terence MacDonagh and Sir Toby Butler;but a generation excluded from public life was naturally lacking inparliamentary experience. Two leading soldiers, Patrick Sarsfieldand Justin MacCarthy, were also among the members. Dr. AlexisStafford, who sat for a Wexford borough, was a remarkable priestwhom James made dean of Christ Church and a Master in Chancery;he died on the field of Aughrim.

The composition of the house of lords is variously estimated bycontemporary accounts, some of which include peers who weresummoned but did not attend. The most noticeable feature of thehouse was that the bishops were those of the Church of Ireland andnot of the Catholic Church. This was severely criticised by Charles

The Jacobite Parliamen t of 1689 69

0'Kelly, who attributed James's decision to a determination to donothing for the restoration of the Catholic Church that would offendEnglish Protestant opinion. Four Protestant bishops—Meath,Ossory, Limerick and Cork—took their seats; three others were stillin Ireland, including the archbishop of Armagh, but were excusedfor age or infirmity; the rest had fled to England. The ablest ofthose who attended was Anthony Dopping, bishop of Meath, whoin effect acted as leader of the opposition. The ' Exact list,' pub-lished in London in the autumn of 1689, contains the names ofthirty-one lay lords; most of them belonged to ' old English ' families,but Gaelic Ireland was represented by Lords Iveagh, Clanmaliere,Clancarty and others. There were five Protestant lay lords—Granard, Longford, Barrymore, Howth and Rosse; the last of thesewas married to Lady TyrconnelTs daughter.

By the time that parliament met on 7 May it was known thatJames's forces were faced with strong resistance from Protestantsin Deny and Enniskillen. Much of the criticism directed againstthe parliament was to the effect that it was highly imprudent toto allow parliamentary debates to divert attention from the pressingneed to gain control of these intransigent Ulster towns.

The session was held in the King's Inns, a former Dominicanconvent near the present Four Courts. It is not known why it wasnot held in Chichester House on College Green, where other parlia-ments of the period met; it may have been because it was in a poorstate of repair. James himself attended, wearing his robes and acrown newly made in Dublin. The personal appearance of an Englishking at the opening of an Irish parliament was without a parallel,and remained so until 1921 when George V opened the parliamentin Belfast. James's speech is quoted in full by Davis. Its chieftheme was liberty of conscience, which James declared himselfdetermined to establish by law. The good of the nation, the improve-ment of trade and the relief of those injured by the Act of Settlementwere also included in the programme. The speech in general, and inparticular the failure to promise actual repeal of the Act of Settle-ment, must have disappointed his hearers, although there was nonote of criticism in their reply.

III. CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS

The legality of the parliament has been hotly disputed. TheWilliamite view was that James was no longer king of England andconsequently no longer king of Ireland, the latter being ' united andinseparably annexed to the imperial crown of England.' TheJacobite view was that William was a usurper and that Jamescontinued to be king of both England and Ireland. The parliamenthas also been criticised on the ground that it did not comply with theprovisions of Poynings' law, which required the proposed legislationto be certified into England and returned under the great seal of


England; James's seal had gone to the bottom of the Thames. Thisobjection may be regarded as technical. Poynings' law was notdesigned for a situation in which the king was in Ireland and couldgive his personal sanction on the spot for the holding of an Irishparliament. The parliament which James summoned in Dublin hada better theoretical claim to be considered legitimate than had theWilliamite parliament in London. Which was the pretended par-liament and who were the rebels would depend on the outcome ofthe war.

The spirit of Poynings' law was observed to the extent that thelegislative programme was scrutinised in advance by James and hiscouncil; the latter (curiously enough) included the French ambas-sador, M. d'Avaux, whose despatches refer to these preliminaryconsultations. The first bill to be approved by the council was,naturally, an acknowledgment of James as rightful king and acondemnation of all opposition to him. The act of which Davisapproved most highly was that declaring that the parliament ofEngland did not bind Ireland and prohibiting appeals in Irish casesbeing brought before English courts.1

It had long been argued whether English laws were enforceable inIreland. The subject had been raised in the negotiations betweenthe confederate Catholics and Charles I, and the question had becomemore acute during the reign of Charles II, in which restrictions wereimposed on Irish trade by English acts. The Declaratory Act ofJames's parliament in 1689 was the forerunner of the long argumentbegun by Molyneux and continued by Swift and Grattan for theright of Ireland to be independent of English laws and courts.Molyneux and Swift ignored the expression that the parliament of1689 had given to this claim. Grattan did not overlook it, thoughhe put his own interpretation on it: the Irish Catholics, he said,should not be reproached for fighting under King James's banner,' when we recollect that before they entered the field they extortedfrom him a Magna Carta, a British constitution.'

The act declared that Ireland had always been a kingdom distinctfrom that of England; its people had never sent representatives to aparliament held in England, but had their laws made in their ownparliament. No English acts were ever binding in Ireland unlessthey had been passed into law by an Irish parliament: ' yet of latetimes (especially in times of distraction) some have pretended thatacts of parliament passed in England, mentioning Ireland, werebinding in Ireland.' This idea was declared to be against justiceand natural equity, oppressive to the people and destructive of thefundamental constitution. It was therefore prescribed that noEnglish act, even though it mentioned Ireland, should be bindingunless it was made into law by the Irish parliament. The act alsoprohibited the practice of preferring appeals from the court of king's

1. For the text of this act see Appendix B.


bench in Ireland to the corresponding court in England, and substi-tuted an Irish court of appeal. Appeals from the high court ofchancery in Ireland to the English house of lords were also prohibited.

James is said to have regarded the Declaratory Act as reflectingon his own prerogative and only to have assented to it because ofthe pressure exerted by his Irish subjects. He refused to agree to therepeal of Poynings' law, which had evoked different responses in itschequered career, but since Charles I's reign had been resented byIrish Catholics. D'Avaux's correspondence suggests that before theparliament met James had been persuaded to agree to a modificationof Poynings' law by which proposed legislation should be scrutinisedby the viceroy but not sent over in advance to England. Accordingto the English pamphlets a bill for the repeal of Poynings' law wasintroduced into the commons on 15 May but did not reach the reportstage till 21 June, when a spokesman for the court stated that theking insisted on royal approval being given in advance beforelegislation was passed by the house of commons. This would nullifythe object of the bill. The account continues: ' it is ordered to berecommitted, and the house inclined to be as free as the parliamentin England.' No further reference is made to the progress of the bill,and it seems clear that James's opposition had been effective inblocking a measure which would have detracted from the king'sprerogative much more directly than the declaratory act had done.King says that because James signified his dissatisfaction the bill wasdropped, ' though the Irish had talked much and earnestly desiredthe repeal of Poynings' law, it being the greatest sign and means oftheir subjection to England.'

IV. THE REPEAL OF THE SETTLEMENTTo many of James's supporters the repeal of the restoration land-

settlement was the primary object of the parliament. But thisproved to be a highly controversial piece of legislation and much ofthe session was taken up in acrimonious wrangling about it. Jameshad previously committed himself on many occasions to the main-tenance of the settlement, which was regarded as an essentialsecurity for English control of Ireland. He himself had been grantedan enormous estate, spread over sixteen counties, by the provisionof the Act of Settlement that vested in him the lands that had beenheld by the regicides under the Commonwealth. He found supportin the ' new interest,' those Catholics who had bought lands fromthose who had received grants under the settlement. Several of theJacobite judges were in this position and they formed an activepressure group against the repeal. Tyrconnell had himself amasseda large estate (mostly in counties Dublin, Kildare and Meath) in thecourse of his activities during Charles II's reign as agent for the IrishCatholics. Arguments were also put forth on behalf of the fewProtestants who had remained loyal to James and would be adverselyaffected by the repeal of the settlement.


The controversy can be followed in d'Avaux's correspondence andthe English pamphlets, which are in general agreement. The billwas introduced in the commons on io May and received with a huzzaand supplementary motions that nothing could be more advantage-ous to the king and the country than to destroy the horrid andbarbarous Act of Settlement, which should be burned by the commonhangman. A rival and much more limited bill was introduced inthe house of lords on 13 May, which is said to have provided for therestoration of only half the lands to the dispossessed proprietors.This attempt at a compromise was defeated in the lords, but theopponents of repeal succeeded in delaying the commons bill fornearly a fortnight. When that bill reached the lords, further delaywas caused by hearing objections and listening to individual applica-tions for special treatment, while the commons grew more and moreimpatient. The lords made a number of amendments, and onJames's suggestion a more moderate preamble was substituted forthe exercise in historical polemics that the commons had approved.Davis gives both versions of the preamble.

When the bill as amended was put to the vote in the house oflords, it was opposed in a vigorous speech by the bishop of Meath,who condemned it as unjust, contrary to the interest of both kingand country and, above all, ill-timed: ' is it now a time for men toseek for vineyards and olive yards when a civil war is raging in thenation and we are under apprehension of invasions from abroad ? 'He said it was like trying to dispose of the skin before the beast wascaught. In spite of this episcopal eloquence the bill was approvedby the lords. The bishops and four of the Protestant lay lordswished to register their protest, but James objected to the term onthe ground that it had rebellious overtones; they might registertheir dissent without specifying their reasons. But James seems tohave been pleased that objections had been raised to a measure towhich he himself was reluctant to agree. Charles Leslie of Glaslough,a Protestant clergyman who remained loyal to James, says that itwas well known that James encouraged the Protestant lords tooppose the bill and that he had complained to Lord Granard that' he was fallen into the hands of a people who rammed many hardthings down his throat.' The amended bill was then sent back tothe commons, who objected to the changes.

Further delay was caused by a series of conferences between thetwo houses, and tempers in the commons grew frayed. Particularoffence was caused by the remarks of one of the ' new interest'judges, Denis Daly, who had referred to the commons as a ' Masan-ello's assembly,' and had said that men from whom King James tookestates could not be expected to fight for him. Masanello was aNaples fisherman who had headed a proletarian rising, and the odiouscomparison led the commons to start proceedings for Daly's impeach-ment. One of his friends saved him by spreading a rumour thatDeny had been taken, and in the atmosphere of good humour


created by this news the impeachment proceedings were dropped.The two houses continued to disagree, and d'Avaux reported thatames was supporting the opposition. The commons threatened towithhold supplies, and this proved effective in securing agreement tothe bill, which received the royal assent on 22 June, six weeks afterits introduction.

The full text of the act is given by Davis. It repealed the Acts ofSettlement and Explanation and annulled all titles derived fromthem (with the exception of a few specific cases). The landholdersof 1641 or their heirs were authorised to take steps for the recoveryof their property, and all outlawries arising from the insurrectionwere cancelled. A court of claims consisting of three or morecommissioners was to be set up to determine the rights of individualsto the recoverable property. The ' new interest'—those who hadbought land from Charles IPs grantees—were to be compensatedwith the lands of William's supporters, which the act declared to beforfeited. The act went beyond mere repeal of the settlement andwas made to apply to all who rebelled against James or even corres-ponded with the rebels, even if their land was not held under thesettlement. King remarks that this affected almost every Protestantwho could write. A special clause cancelled the grant, dating fromJames I's time, of Deny city and county to the London companies.The right of Deny corporation to its property would remain, butthe rest of the property would go to form part of the stock availablefor compensating Jacobites. James himself was to be compensatedfor the loss of his Irish estate by a grant of Lord Kingston's lands inCork and Roscommon. He was also to keep the Phoenix park andthe royal lands at Chapelizod. Other clauses provided for theinterests of influential individuals. One of these was the Catholiclawyer and entrepreneur John Browne of Westport (ancestor of theMarquesses of Sligo), whose ironworks at Knappagh, county Mayo,were declared to be of national importance and excluded from theoperation of the Act of Repeal. He had bought the land from LordMayo under the Act of Settlement.

In 1641 Catholics still held the greater part of the land in Leinster,Munster and Connacht. The Act of Repeal made provision—ifJames should win the war—for the recovery of what they had sincelost. Those who had already been dispossessed before 1641, notablythe Ulster Gaels, were not specifically provided for. But the futureownership of Irish land would depend on the outcome of the war;a Jacobite victory was essential if the repeal of the settlement wasto have any meaning. In the event, the procedure laid down in theact does not seem to have been put into operation. Shortly after theadjournment of the parliament James issued a proclamation thatthere would be no court of claims for the time being ' because somemay neglect the public safety of the kingdom upon pretence ofattending their private concerns.' We hear nothing more of thecourt of claims, and the Jacobite defeat at the Boyne made theAct of Repeal a dead letter.


The act has been criticised as retrospective and confiscatorylegislation. But the demand for it was very natural. The restorationsettlement had from the first been bitterly attacked by Catholics onthe ground that it was weighted in favour of Cromwellians. Theirattitude was later summed up by Swift: ' the Catholics of Irelandlost their estates for fighting in defence of their king, while thosewho cut off the father's head and forced the son to fly for his lifegot the very estates which the Catholics lost.' Pressure for thealteration of the settlement had been going on all through Charles II'sreign, and the demand increased after the accession of James II.After the English revolution it was the hope of getting back theirlands that chiefly led the Catholics to support James. They made itclear to him that their support was conditional upon his givingthem what they wanted, and their demand was strengthened by thefact that most of their supplanters were in open opposition to James.The ownership of the land was a major issue in the war. Outrightvictory for either side would result in large transfers of land to thevictors. Protestants were no less insistent on this point thanCatholics were. Each regarded the others as rebels, and the confisca-tion of the lands of defeated rebels was a commonplace of Irishhistory. Retrospective interference with vested interests was not anovelty in Ireland, where the crown recognised no time limit inasserting its title to land. Protestant propaganda made much of therepeal of the settlement, but the repeal was not responsible forWilliam's policy, which he had already declared to be the forfeitureof the estates of those who refused to acknowledge him. The realargument against the act was that it distracted attention from themilitary effort at a critical stage of the war. Prolonged and acri-monious parliamentary debates should not have been allowed tocoincide with the siege of Deny. The provisions of the act itselfinvolved complicated investigations which threatened to conflictwith the energetic prosecution of the war.

V. THE ACT OF ATTAINDERA measure that aroused even more Protestant indignation was

the Act of Attainder, directed against those who were said to havejoined William either in England or in the north of Ireland. Kingdescribes it as without parallel since the days of ancient Rome andas a Papist design to bring about the utter extirpation of theheretics. Davis regarded it as the great mistake of the parliament:it could not, he thought, be made effective without a Jacobitevictory, which would make it unnecessary and vindictive. Leckycalled it an act of sweeping and violent injustice, the great blot onthe reputation of the parliament; but he found some extenuatingcircumstances. It was a conditional attainder (or outlawry),launched in the middle of a civil war; religion was not the criterion,but refusal to acknowledge James. Lecky regarded its real aim asconfiscation of property and not the taking of life. He pointed out


that at the same time the English parliament was debating a billfor the attainder of Jacobites in Ireland. That bill, however, wasnot passed, and involved a much smaller number of individuals.

The act referred to the ' most horrid invasion of the king'sunnatural enemy, the Prince of Orange, assisted by many of hismajesty's rebellious and traitorous subjects.' It contained the namesof over 2,000 individuals, divided into different categories. There arediscrepancies in the numbers shown in various accounts, and there issome duplication of names. The summary given in King's State ofthe Protestants does not tally with the text of the act, which he givesin an appendix as an authentic copy of the document found by theWilliamite authorities in the rolls office after the battle of the Boyne.According to this, the first category, consisting of those who hadnotoriously joined in the rebellion, contained 1,340 names headed bythe Duke of Ormond and the Protestant archbishop of Dublin.They were to be declared traitors and suffer the usual penalties ofdeath and confiscation, unless by 10 August they surrendered to ajudge and then, after due trial, were acquitted. The second cate-gory—840 names headed by the Protestant archbishop of Tuam andArthur Chichester, Earl of Donegall—consisted of those who hadleft Ireland since the date of William's invasion of England orshortly before that; their absence in spite of proclamations callingthem home would be construed as treason unless they returned by1 September and presented themselves to a judge. The thirdcategory—200 in number—consisted of those who had gone at anearlier stage to live in England, Scotland or the Isle of Man. Theywere given till 1 October to return to Ireland; if James had by thatdate reached Britain (an optimistic touch), he would offer pardon tothose who were bona fide resident there. The final category—90 names—consisted of those whose absence was due to sickness, oldage or other disability. They were not to be attainted; but, as itwould impoverish the country to send them their rents, their landswere in the meantime to be vested in the crown. If they laterreturned and behaved as loyal subjects, they might claim them back.

Little time was given for repentance, and we do not hear of anypersons returning to the Jacobite allegiance. King maintains thatthe names were deliberately kept secret so as to deny any opportunityto those who might have been inclined to return. But there wereenough Protestants in both houses to prevent the names from beingaltogether concealed, and frequent reports of Dublin proceedingswere taken over to England. The first list of the names in the actwas published in London in the spring of 1690. It is evidently agarbled version, which muddles the categories and contains con-siderably fewer names than King has in his appendix. It did notappear till after the specified dates had passed, and it is certainlytrue that it would not have been easy for anybody in England tohave returned within the time limit to Jacobite Ireland. But thegreat majority of those mentioned were clearly supporters of


William, and it is difficult to take the view that the act was anymore outrageous than the very summary judicial proceedings fortreason which took place after the rising of 1641 and which were tobe repeated by the Williamite authorities after the battle of theBoyne.1 The lists are of great interest as providing an extensiveseries of names and addresses of Irish Protestants of the lateseventeenth century. They are mostly landowners, but there are anumber of yeomen and shopkeepers included in the lists, whichcover the whole country. King was particularly scathing about aclause of the act which barred James from granting pardons after1 November. He says that it made James so angry that he developeda fit of nose-bleeding, a weakness to which he was subject. Thememoirs of James's life refer ruefully to this provision as a case inwhich he sacrificed his own interest to the wishes of his subjects.The Protestant parliament of 1697 made a similar restriction ofWilliam's prerogative of mercy. Each parliament was suspicious ofthe excessive leniency of its sovereign.

VI. MATTERS OF RELIGION

church to the position it had held before the reformation. A William-ite pamphlet gives what is stated to be an address presented to Jamesby the Catholic bishops and clergy, copies of which are said to havebeen found in Dublin after the battle of the Boyne. The addressasked for the repeal of the Act of Uniformity (which gave recognitionto the Protestant established church alone) and of the penal laws,and also asked for the restoration of the Catholic bishops and clergyto their livings, churches and authority. It was argued that therewas no need to humour English Protestants, who were more likelyto be upset by James's secular measures than by the restoration ofthe Catholic Church in Ireland. If this address was made it was tomeet with little success. The summoning of Protestant, and notCatholic, bishops to the house of lords was an indication of James'sdetermination to preserve the position of the established church.In his opening speech to parliament he made no reference to eitherchurch, but confined himself to expressing support for liberty ofconscience. The bill for liberty of conscience as first sent up by thecommons appears to have included a provision for the repeal of theAct of Uniformity. A contemporary Protestant pamphlet says thatit took away the ' king's supremacy in ecclesiastics and abrogatedall laws against Papists.' Another pamphlet says that James toldthe bishop of Meath that he did not like the commons bill, that itdiminished his prerogative and was designed to make him break hisword to the established church; he did not intend to do away withthe Act of Uniformity nor destroy the Protestant religion, but onlyto take away penalties that were against liberty. This account

1. For the Jacobites outlawed after the Boyne see Analecta Hibernica, xxii.

Catholics naturally hoped for legislation that would restore their


attributed his stand to the advice of the English Chief JusticeHerbert, who told James that he would otherwise lose all his Englishfriends. It goes on to say:' but the work is done effectively by otherbills and the Act of Uniformity will stand like the edict of Nantes,till there be no occasion for it.' The version given in this pamphletis corroborated from the Jacobite side by O'Kelly, who says thatJames could not be persuaded to rescind the impious laws enactedby Queen Elizabeth against the Roman church and restore thejurisdiction of the Pope lest it might alienate from him the hearts ofhis Protestant subjects whom he always courted. We have not thetext of the act for liberty of conscience as finally passed; it seems tohave assured to persons of every denomination the right to worshipas they pleased. It certainly undermined the Act of Uniformity, butleft it on the statute book and did not substitute a Catholic for aProtestant establishment. There is a reference to the act for libertyof conscience in a proclamation issued later in 1689, in which it iscited as the ground for allowing Protestants the free right of worshipand forbidding the seizure of their churches, of which there hadbeen a number of instances. James's memoirs state that he wasparticularly glad to assent to the act in spite of the provocation hehad received from his Protestant subjects.

An act that had the object of removing a major Catholic grievancerelated to tithes.1 It stated that Catholics maintained their ownclergy and in addition were burdened by the payment of tithes tothe Protestant clergy who performed no spiritual duties for them.It was therefore provided that Catholics should in future be requiredto pay tithes to their own clergy and to no others. An act regulatingtithes in Ulster (of which we have not the text) presumably providedsimilar relief to Ulster Presbyterians. These arrangements wouldleave the clergy of the Church of Ireland with the tithes of otherProtestants. But King, from the standpoint of a clergyman,claimed that their apparent equity was mere hypocrisy: Protestantshad been so harried that few had anything titheable left, and thepriests would be sure to take possession of the glebes without beinggiven them by parliament. A further point was raised about' appropriate tithes,' payable to bishops and other church dignitaries.This was dealt with in a supplementary act, which declared thatCatholics should pay such tithes to the bishops and dignitaries oftheir own church, and that those only were to be considered Catholicbishops and deans who were named such by the king—a markedstep towards the official recognition of the Catholic Church. But thismeasure fell short of what Catholics wanted. Plunkett called itirreligious on the ground that it left the church lands in the possessionof Protestant bishops and only restored the Catholic bishops to suchtithes as were annexed to their station: ' they mended the matter inparochial priests, for they gave possession unto them of all the tithes

1. For the text of the act see Appendix C.


of Catholic people, leaving to the ministers the tithes of their own.'D'Avaux reported to Louis XIV that two members of the commonshad complained to him that James was unwilling to remove theProtestant bishops and clergy and put Catholics in their place or torestore church property.

VII. FINANCE AND ECONOMICSFinance was a pressing problem and from the government's point

of view the supply bill was an important part of the legislativeprogramme. The nature of the proposed taxation was discussed inadvance by James and his advisers, the alternatives being a personaltax or a tax on property. The latter was preferred, and James askedfor £15,000 a month for thirteen months, which both houses resolvedto increase to £20,000. But the commons delayed the passage of thebill, as they thought that once James had his money he would paylittle attention to the demand for the repeal of the Act of Settlement.Resentment at James's obstructive attitude to the repeal led to aproposal to postpone the date from which the subsidy would bepayable, but James's capitulation on the land question made furtherthreats unnecessary.

We have no contemporary text of the act, but Davis discovered acopy in a collection of statutes in the library of the King's Inns.He commented that the levy was fairly distributed between differentareas, and that the rebellious counties of Donegal and Fermanaghwere no more heavily taxed than the rest. The act sets out the namesof the commissioners in each county who were to be responsible forcollecting the revenue. They consisted of the principal local families,who either owned land or had done so and hoped to recover it. Mostof them were Catholics, but a few Protestants appear here and therein the lists.1 Davis particularly commended the act for its treatmentof tenants. They were made responsible for the payment of the taxin the first instance, but were allowed to deduct the whole tax fromtheir rent unless the land had been let for half its value or less, inwhich case they could deduct part of the tax: ' where since has aparliament of landlords in England or Ireland acted with equalliberality ? ' In fact, the tax must have been unwelcome to manywho were enjoying rent-free occupation as a result of the flight ofthe landlords. How much was actually collected is not known, butit was not nearly enough to meet James's needs, even though theywere helped out by a separate act which vested in the crown thegoods of those who had left the country. TyrconnelTs interests werelooked after by an act awarding him lands worth £15,000 a year.

The parliament also showed a zealous, but not immediatelyrelevant, concern for the economic progress of the country. An actprohibiting the import of English, Scottish or Welsh coal fore-

1. For the names see C. Preston, ' Commissioners under the patriot parlia-ment ' in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, lxxiv, 141-57 (1950).

' burn everything English except their coal.' Coal imports werecondemned as causing local unemployment and loss of currency.To prevent the act being exploited by the mineowners of Kilkennyand other Irish collieries, the price at the pithead was fixed atninepence a barrel. An elaborate act for the advance and improve-ment of trade and for the encouragement of shipping and navigationset aside the restrictions imposed by the English navigation laws andpermitted direct trading with the colonies. Shipbuilding was en-couraged by a rebate of part of the duties on cargoes for the first threeor four voyages of ships built in Ireland. Tax exemptions and otherprivileges were offered to seamen, shipwrights and other experts.An interesting provision was for the establishment of free schools inDublin, Belfast, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Galway to teachmathematics and navigation. The inclusion of Belfast among themajor ports was an intelligent piece of forecasting, or a bid forPresbyterian support.

The French were anxious for legislation which would give Francethe favoured economic position in relation to Ireland that waspreviously enjoyed by England. In particular, they wanted theexport of raw wool, hitherto confined to England, to become aFrench monopoly. D'Avaux says that the commons passed billsbanning the export of wool to England and facilitating the exportof wool and other articles to France. Neither of these passed in thehouse of lords, and d'Avaux put this down to James's opposition:' he has a heart too English to take any step that could vex theEnglish, and that holds up the woollen business.' A bill for thenaturalisation of French subjects also passed the commons, but wasblocked in the lords by James's intervention. After a month ofdisagreement between the two houses it was redrafted to apply to allcountries, as James did not wish there to be any special relationshipbetween the French and the Irish. This seems to be the ' act for theencouragement of strangers and others to inhabit and plant inIreland,' of which we have only the title. The dispute shows Jamesas doggedly English in outlook.

VIII. CONCLUSIONWhat was achieved by the parliament ? James got a subsidy that

was quite inadequate for his war expenses and must have been verydifficult to collect. The heirs of the 1641 landowners had the satis-faction of seeing the repeal of the settlement put on the statute book,but this result was gained at the expense of much friction during thesession, and was qualified by James's subsequent refusal to appointa court to hear the cases of those who claimed title to the lands.The Catholic Church got much less than it wanted. Liberty ofconscience was not the same as the reinstatement of the church, andin fact was invoked in the interest of harried Protestant clergy whosechurches had been forcibly seized. The Declaratory Act denied the

79

shadiwed the protectionist attitude of the saying quoted by swift:

the jacobite prarliament of 1689 8989898999999999999999999999999


authority in Ireland of the English parliament and courts, butJames's refusal to abolish Poynings' law maintained the subordina-tion of the Irish parliament to English control. The commercial andeconomic legislation was of little practical importance while the warlasted, and James's refusal to replace English privileges by Frenchshowed that a Jacobite victory was unlikely to have removed Englishcommercial domination.

The parliamentary session did much to disillusion James's Irishsupporters. It was made clear to them that he regarded Ireland as astepping-stone to the recovery of England and was reluctant to doanything that would alienate English opinion; the Irish had a king' with one shoe English.' The legislation and proceedings are signifi-cant as illustrations of what Catholics wanted and of the limits towhich they could press an unwilling king. The repeal of the Act ofSettlement was clearly the primary object of most members; butself-government and the status of the church were also importantobjects, and the acts relating to them fell far short of Catholicaspirations. The economic legislation was a partial attempt to showhow an independent Irish parliament could foster Irish industry andtechnical education.

Had James won the war, the legislation of the parliament wouldhave produced significant changes in Ireland. But those changeswould not have undone the English conquest or restored Gaelic rule;and they would in some ways have restricted the freedom of theCatholic Church in Ireland. The parliament predominantly repres-ented the ' old English ' landlord interest; its measures would havereplaced a Protestant by a Catholic oligarchy, whose privilegedposition would have been based on crown grants and on a legal andconstitutional system derived from that of England. The Irishparliament would be able to assert its independence of the Englishparliament, but Poynings' law would still ensure its subordinationto the crown. Such legislation as conflicted with the economicinterests of England would not have been likely to survive long. InIreland, no less than in continental Europe, a Catholic dynastywould certainly have sought to influence the policy and personnel ofthe Catholic Church, which would thus be deprived of that freedomwhich was an unintended by-product of the penal laws.

The reputation of the parliament has to a great extent been basedon the fact that in the Declaratory Act it gave formal expression toa demand for independence of the English parliament and courts:a demand that long continued to be a major constitutional contro-versy. Irish Catholics of the eighteenth century were reluctant todiscuss the proceedings of an assembly that had been declared illegal.But Wolfe Tone praised it highly. ' The last Catholic assembly,' hewrote, ' which Ireland had seen was the parliament, summoned byJames II in 1689, a body of men whose wisdom, spirit and patriotismreflect no discredit on their country or their sec t . . . an assembly towhose meritss no his torian has yet no historianhas s yhas yet ventured to do justice, but whose


memory, when passions and prejudices are no more, will be perpetu-ated in the hearts of their grateful countrymen.' In the nineteenthcentury a series of Irish writers, beginning with Matthew O'Conor,commended it as a patriotic and public-spirited body. Davis'sarticles, published in the Dublin Magazine (January-April, 1843),were a detailed and thorough study, which put the parliament of1689 in line with the movement of 1782 and the aspirations ofYoung Ireland. Fifty years later, in 1893, Gavan Duffy gave widepublicity and an emotive title to Davis's work. The patriot parlia-ment of i68g was a well-timed publication, and it was not difficultto present the Jacobites of 1689 as the forerunners of the HomeRulers of the post-Parnell era.

81

8 2 War and Po litics in Ireland, 1649-1730

LIST OF SOURCES

A. c CONTEMPORARYAn exact list of the lords spiritual and temporal who sat in thepretended parliament at Dublin, London, 1689.A true account of the whole proceedings of the parliament inIreland, London, 1689.A list of such of the names . . . attainted, together with . . . theacts, London, 1690.An account of the transactions of the late King James inIreland, London, 1690.

J. T. GILBERT, ed.A Jacobite narrative of the war in Ireland, i68g-gi (PlunkettMS.), Dublin, 1892.

J. HOGAN, ed.Negociations de M. le Comte d'Avaux en Irlande, i68g-go(Irish MSS. Commission), Dublin, 1934.

W. KINGThe state of the Protestants of Ireland under the late KingJames's government, London, 1691.

C. O'KELLYMacariae excidium, or the destruction of Cyprus, ed. J. C.O'Callaghan, Dublin, 1850.

B. lllater . LATER WORKSJ. S. CLARKE

The life of James III [based on contemporary Jacobitememoirs], London, 1816.

T. DAVISThe patriot parliament of i68g, ed. C. Gavan Duffy,London, 1893.

J. A. FROUDEThe English in Ireland, London, 1874.

W. E. H. LECKYHistory of Ireland in the eighteenth century, London, 1892.

T. B. MACAULAYHistory of England, London, 1848-61.


APPENDIX A

An exact list of the knights, citizens and burgesses, who werereturned and sat in the parliament held in Dublin under the lateKing James in 1689.

NOTE—Those wanting are for Londonderry, Inniskellin and suchplaces as were in the Protestants' hands.

County of ANTRIMCormac O'Neill EsqRandal MacDonnell Esq

Borough of BelfastMarcus Talbot EsqDaniell O'Neill Esq

County of ARDMAGHArthur Brownlow EsqWalter Hovenden Esq

Borough of ArdmaghFrancis Stafford EsqConstantine O'Neill Esq

County of CATHERLAGHDudley Bagnal EsqHenry Lutterell Esq

Borough of CatherlaghMarcus Baggot EsqJohn Warren Esq

Borough of Old LeighlinDarby Long EsqDaniel Doran Esq

County of CAVANPhilip Reilly of Aghnecrevy EsqJohn Reilly of Garirobuck Esq

Borough of CavanPhilip Og O'ReiUy EsqHugh Reilly of Lara Esq

Borough of BelturbetSir Edward Tyrrel BartPhilip Tuite of Newcastle Esq

County of CLAREDaniel O'Brien EsqJohn Macnamara of Crattlagh

Esq

Borough of EnnisFlorence Macnamara of

Dromad EsqTheobald Butler of

Strathnagaloon Esq

County of CORKJustin MacCarthy EsqSir Richard Nagle Kt

City of CorkSir James Cotter KtJohn Galloway Esq

Town of YoughalThomas Uniack AldermanEdward Gough Alderman

Town of KinsaleAndrew Murrogh EsqMiles de Courcy Esq

Town of BandonbridgeCharles MacCarthy of Ballea EsqDaniel MacCarthy Reagh Esq


Town of MallowJohn Barret of Castlemore EsqDavid Nagle of Carragowne Esq

Borough of BaltimoreDaniel O'Donovan EsqJeremy Donovan Esq

Borough of CloghnakiltyLt-Col Owen MacCarthyDaniel Fion MacCarthy Esq

Borough of CharlevileJohn Baggot Sen of

Baggotstown EsqJohn Power of Killballane Esq

Borough of MiddletonDermot Long EsqJohn Long Esq

Borough of RathcormacJames Barry EsqEdward Powel Esq

Borough of DoneraileDaniel O'Donovan EsqJohn Baggot Jun of Baggots-

town Esq

County of DOWNMurtagh MacGennis of Green-

castle EsqEver MacGennis of Castlewelan

Esq

Borough of KilleleaghBernard MacGennis of Bally-

gorianbege es EsqToole O'Neill of Drummekelly

Gent

Borough of NewryRowland White EsqRowland Savage Esq

County and town of DROGHEDAHenry Dowdall Esq Recorder

Christopher Peppard FitzgeorgeAlderman

County of DUBLINSimon Lutterelof Lutterelstown

EsqPatrick Sarsfield Jun of Lucan

Esq

City of DublinSir Michael Creagh Kt

Lord MayorTerence Dermot Sen Alderman

University of DublinSir John Meade KtJoseph Coghlan Esq

Borough of s SwordsFrancis Barnewell of Woodpark,

county Meath esqRobert Russel of Drynham Esq

Borough of NewcastleThomas Arthur of Colganstown

EsqJohn Talbot of Belgard Esq

County of GALWAYSir Ulick Bourk BartSir Walter Blake Bart

Town of GalwayOliver Martin EsqJohn Kirwan Esq

Town of AthenryJames Talbot of Mounttalbot EsqCharles Daly of Dunsandal Esq

Borough of TuamJames Lally of TullendalyWilliam Bourk of Carrowfrila

County of KERRYNicholas Brown EsqSir Thomas Crosby Kt


Borough of Dingle-IcouchEdward Rice FitzJames of

Ballinelig, county Limerick EsqJohn Hussey of Culmullin Esq

Borough of TraleeMaurice Hussey of Kerry EsqJohn Brown of Ardagh Esq

Borough of ArdfertCol Roger MacElligotCornelius MacGillicuddy Esq

County of KILDAREJohn Wogan EsqGeorge Aylmer Esq

Borough of KildareFrancis Leigh EsqRobert Porter Esq

Borough of n NaasWalter Lord DunganCharles White Esq

Borough of A thyWilliam Fitzgerald EsqWilliam Archbold Esq

Borough of HarrystownJames Nihel EsqEdmond Fitzgerald Esq

County of KILKENNYJames Grace of Courstown EsqRobert Walsh of Cloneassy Esq

City of KilkennyJohn Rooth MayorJames Bryan Alderman

Borough of GowranRichard ButlerCol Robert Fielding by a new

electionWalter Kelly Dr of Physic

Borough of ThomastownRobert Grace Sen EsqRobert Grace Jun Esq

Borough of InistiogeEdward Fitzgerald EsqJames Fitzgerald Esq

Borough of CallanWalter Butler EsqThady Meagher Esq

Borough of KnocktopherHarvey Morres EsqHenry Meagh Esq

KING'S COUNTYHewer Oxburgh EsqOwen Carroll Esq

Borough of BanagherTerence Coghlan EsqTerence Coghlan Gent

Borough of PhiliftstownJohn Connor EsqHewer Oxburgh Esq

County of LEITRIMEdmond Reynells EsqIriel Farrell Esq

Borough of JamestownAlexander MacDonnel EsqWilliam Shanley Esq

County of LIMERICKSir James Pltzgerald BartGerald Fitzgerald Knight of

the Glyn

City of LimerickNicholas Arthur AldermanThomas Harrold Alderman

Borough of KilmallockSir William Hurley BartJohn Lacy Esq


Borough of Askeyton Borough of AthboyJohn Bourk of Cahirmoyhill Esq John Trynder EsqEdward Rice Esq Robert Longfield Esq

County of LONGFORDRoger Farrell EsqRobert Farrell Esq

Borough of LanesboroughOliver Fitzgerald EsqRoger Farrell Esq

Borough of St. JohnstownSir William Ellis KtLt Col James Nugent

County of LOUTHThomas Bellew EsqWilliam Talbot Esq

Borough of AtherdeeHugh Gernon EsqJohn Babe Esq

Borough of DundalkRobert Dermot EsqJohn Dowdgall Esq

Borough of CarlingfordChristopher Peppard

Fitzlgnatius EsqBryan Dermot Esq

County of MAYOGerald Moore EsqWalter Bourk Esq

Borough of NavanChristopher Cusacke of Corballis

EsqChristopher Cusacke of

Ratholeran Esq

Borough of KellsPatrick Everard EsqJohn Delamare Esq

Borough of RatoathJohn Hussey EsqJames Fitzgerald Esq

County of MONAGHANBryan MacMahon EsqHugh MacMahon Esq

QUEEN'S COUNTYSir Patrick Trant KtEdmond Morres Esq

Borough of MaryboroughPierce Bryan EsqThady Fitzpatrick Esq

Borough of BallynakillSir Gregory Byrne BartOliver Grace Esq

Borough of PortarlingtonSir Henry Bond KtSir Thomas Hacket Kt

Borough of Castlebar County of ROSCOMMONJohn Bermingham Esq Portreeve Charles Kelly EsqThomas Bourk Esq John Bourk Esq

County of MEATHSir William Talbot BartSir Patrick Barnewall Bart

Borough of TrimCaptain Nicholas CusackWalter Nangle Esq

Borough of RoscommonJohn Dillon EsqJohn Kelly Esq

Borough of BoyleCaptain John KingTerence MacDermot Alderman

borough of a thoybor

c o u n t m o n o n y


County of SLIGOHenry Crofton EsqOliver O'Gara Esq

Borough of SligoTerence MacDonogh EsqJames French Esq

County of TIPPERARYNicholas Purcel of Loghmore

EsqJames Butler of Grangebeg Esq

Borough of ClonmelNicholas White AldermanJohn Bray Alderman

City of CashelDennis Kearney AldermanJames Hacket Alderman

Borough of FeathardSir John Everard BartJames Tobin of Feathard Esq

County of TYRONECol Gordon O'NeillLewis Doe of Dungannon Esq

Borough of DungannonArthur O'Neill of Ballygawley

EsqPeter Donnelly of Dungannon

Esq

Borough of StrabaneChristopher Nugent of Dublin

EsqDaniel Donnelly of the same Gent

County of WATERFORDJohn Power EsqMatthew Hore Esq

City of WaterfordJohn Porter EsqNicholas Fitzgerald Esq

Borough of DungarvanJohn Hore EsqMartin Hore Esq

County of WESTMEATHThe Hon Col William NugentThe Hon Col Henry Dillon

Borough of AthloneEdmond Malone of Ballyna-

houne es EsqEdmond Malone Counsellor at

lawBorough of KilbegganBryan Geoghegan of Donore EsqCharles Geoghegan of Lyonane

[Syonane] Esq

Manor of MullingarGerard Dillon Esq Prime

SergeantEdmond Nugent of Carlanstown

Esq

Borough of ForeJohn Nugent of Donore EsqChristopher Nugent of

Dardystown Esq

County of WEXFORDWalter Butler of Munfine EsqPatrick Colclough of Mochury

Esq

Town of WexfordWilliam Talbot EsqFrancis Rooth Merchant

Town of New RossLuke Dormer EsqRichard Butler Esq

Borough of EnniscorthyJames Devereux of Carrigmenan

EsqDudley Colclough of Moughery

EsqArthur Waddington Esq Port-

reeve by b by a new election

War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730

Borough of FethardThe Rt Hon Col James PorterCapt Nicholas Stafford

Borough of Newboroughalias Gorey

Abraham Strange of ToberduffEsq

Richard Doyle of Kilorky Esq

Borough of BannowFrancis Plowden Esq Commis-

sioner o of of the revenueDr Alexis StaffordBorough of ClominesEdward Sherlock of Dublin EsqNicholas White of New Ross

Merchant

Borough of TaghmonGeorge Hore of Polehore EsqWalter Hore of Harperstown

Esq

County of WICKLOWRichard Butler EsqWilliam Talbot Esq

Borough of WicklowFrancis Toole EsqThomas Byrne Esq

Borough of CarysfortHugh Byrne EsqPierce Archbold Esq upon

whose default of appearanceBartholomew Polewheele Esq

Borough of BlessingtonJames Eustace EsqMaurice Eustace Gent

The commons chose Sir RichardNagle their Speaker, and Mr. JohnKerney was Clerk of that house

88


APPENDIX B

An act declaring that the parliament of England cannot bindIreland, and against writs of error and appeals to be brought forremoving judgments, decrees and sentences, given in Ireland, intoEngland.

Whereas his majesty's realm of Ireland is and hath been always adistinct kingdom from that of his majesty's realm of England,always governed by his majesty and his predecessors according tothe ancient customs, laws and statutes thereof: so no acts passedin any parliament held in England were ever binding here, exceptsuch of them as by acts of parliament passed in this kingdom weremade into laws here; yet of late times (especially in times of dis-tractions) some have pretended that acts of parliament passed inEngland, mentioning Ireland, were binding in Ireland; and as theselate opinions are against justice and natural equity, so they tend tothe great oppression of the people here, and to the overthrow of thefundamental constitutions of this realm.

And to the end that by these modern and late opinions no personmay be further deluded, be it therefore enacted by the king's mostexcellent majesty, by the advice and consent of the lords spiritualand temporal, and the commons in this present parliament hereassembled, and by the authority of the same: and it is herebydeclared that no act of parliament passed, or to be passed, in theparliament of England, though Ireland should be therein mentioned,can be, or shall be any way binding in Ireland, excepting such actspassed, or to be passed in England, as are or shall be made into lawby the parliament of Ireland.

[The remainder of the act, dealing with appeals, is omitted.]

APPENDIX C

An act concerning tithes and other ecclesiastical dutiesWhereas tithes, oblations, obventions, offerings and other ecclesias-tical duties and profits growing and arising within all and every therespective parish and parishes of this kingdom (impropriate tithesexcepted) have by the law of the land, and constitution of HolyChurch ever since the Council of Lateran, been due and payable tothe respective pastors, curates and vicars of the said respectiveparishes, having cure of souls therein, as a provision and maintenance

89


for them for serving the said cure, by celebrating divine service,administering of sacraments, preaching and instructing the parish-ioners thereof in the true faith, and performing other pastoral dutiesbelonging to their functions:

And forasmuch as the Roman Catholic subjects of this kingdomfor some time past have maintained their own priests, pastors,curates and vicars, and thereby have been very much impoverishedby being obliged to pay their tithes and other ecclesiastical dues tothe Protestant clergy, who have not laboured in the administrationof any of the said spiritual offices for any of the said Roman Catholics:

Be it therefore enacted, and it is hereby enacted by your mostexcellent majesty by and with the advice and consent of the lordsspiritual and temporal and the commons in this present parliamentassembled and by authority of the same, that your majesty's RomanCatholic subjects of this kingdom shall and may set out and pay alltheir tithes, oblations and other ecclesiastical duties (which of rightare due and payable) from henceforth to their respective RomanCatholic priests, pastors, curates and vicars, and to no other personor persons of whatsoever religion or persuasion (impropriate tithesexcepted), any law or custom to the contrary notwithstanding:

Provided always, and it is hereby further enacted, that all andevery person and persons of the Roman Catholic clergy, who shallbe entitled to any tithes or payments in lieu of tithes by virtue ofthis act or otherwise, and their proctors and fanners, shall and maysue for the same or the value thereof by writ, bill, petition or actionof debt, or such other action for substraction or not setting forththe said tithes, in any of your majesty's courts within this kingdomas he or they might have done for detaining or not paying anytemporal duty, and shall and may recover their costs in such suits:

And all incapacities heretofore devised by any temporal law fordisabling any of the said Roman Catholic clergy from enjoying anybenefices or tithes, or making any collations or benefices to themconferred void, are hereby discharged and made void to all intentsand purposes whatsoever.

7

SCHOMBERG AT DUNDALK, 1689

but his last independent command was marked by failure and the devas/tation of his army, caused not by the enemy but by a combination of

inefficient administration and Irish weather. He was half'German and, on hismother's side, half/English. He had served for many years in the French army andhad won a high reputation, becoming a marshal of France in 1677. But he wasa protestant, and when the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685 he left Franceand entered the service of the Elector of Brandenburg, who in 1688 put him atthe disposal of William of Orange. He came to England with William andtook part in the successful invasion that resulted in the flight of James II andthe "glorious revolution".

This gave William control of England, but Ireland (where the Earl of Tyr/connell was gathering an army for James) and Scotland (where Viscount Dundeewas raising the Highlands) were still to be dealt with. William had not muchfaith in the regular English army, which had ratted once and might rat again.His main faith was in his own Dutch troops and in the Huguenot regimentsthat had been formed from French protestant refugees. Holland was hard pressedby Louis XIV, and the Dutch government demanded substitutes for the troopsthey had sent to England. So Marlborough was sent with a large part of theEnglish army to Holland for the summer campaign of 1689. Schomberg wasgiven the task of building up a new army for the conquest of Ireland. This wasto be as far as possible raised by protestant nobility and gentry who had escapedfrom Tyrconnell's regime in Ireland, and it would employ a number of officerswho had been dismissed by Tyrconnell from the Irish army. But most of theother ranks would have to be levied in England. This raw army would bestiffened by Dutch and Huguenot regiments.

Of all William's continental commanders Schomberg seemed to be the bestqualified for this operation. He spoke English well (besides French and German).He had had experience of the same sort before when he built up a Portuguesearmy that enabled Portugal to hold out against Spain. But he was now in hisseventyfourth year, and his temperament was cautious, professional and fussy.

Orders for the raising and equipping of 18 regiments of infantry and 5 of horseand dragoons were given in March 1689 (the month that James went to Irelandwith French support). But it was not till July that the expedition began toassemble at Chester. From this point on Schomberg's complaints are almostcontinuous. The regiments were not ready, supplies and equipment were short,the admiralty was slow in providing ships. The intention was that the expe/ditionary force should bring Ireland under William's control and expel Jamesduring the campaigning season of 1689. But the prospects did not look bright.James was in control of all Ireland, except for Derry and Enniskillen. Theattempt to relieve Derry had so far been frustrated by a boom across the river,

HE Duke of Schomberg was one of the most famous soldiers in Europe,T

92 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730and the city seemed on the point of being starved into surrender. In ScotlandDundee had control of the Highlands and was a formidable threat to Mackayand his Williamite army. Schomberg had intended to go to the relief of Derry,but his expedition was not ready when, at the end of July, the whole situationdramatically changed in William's favour. Derry was relieved, the Enniskillenersrouted a Jacobite army at Newtownbutler, and Dundee was killed at Killiecrankle.

In Jacobite Ireland there was panic. A large part of the army disintegrated;some regiments were down to quarter strength. The greater part of Ulster wasabandoned, with Carrickfergus and Charlemont the only strong points retained,besides a small mobile force under Brigadier Maxwell near Belfast. It was estimatedthat at the end of July James could not put more than 7,000 men in the field.This was the opportunity for Schomberg to strike hard with good prospects ofsuccess, in conjunction with the triumphant Enniskilleners and with Kirke*sthree regiments who had relieved Derry. But Schomberg had much to contendwith at Chester. When he got there in the third week of July he found no shipsand no provisions. About ten days later 50 ships appeared, which were to carrymunitions and troops, but the provision ships had not yet arrived. A majorobstacle was John Shales, the supply officer. Schomberg's letters to William arefull of complaints against Shales. He had not sent the promised provisions, hewas particularly short on beer. Quantities of muskets were out of order becausethey were so badly made. Schomberg suspected Shales's son Henry, who inspectedthem, of taking bribes to pass defective weapons. Shales himself had generallymismanaged things; his bona fides was very suspect; he was said to have beena papist not long before.1 (In fact, Shales had been the contractor for James II'sunpopular army camp at Hounslow Heath).

William wanted the expedition to land as near Dublin as possible. Schombergfirst thought of landing at Carlingford, but the pilots reported that the harbourwas not good and that the best landing/place would be Belfast Lough. Schombergaccepted this plan, which would make for easier linking/up with forces fromDerry and Enniskillen. When he set sail on 12 August there were not enoughships available. He could take only 12 regiments of infantry, leaving the rest ofthe infantry and all the horse to follow. He had some cannon and mortars, whichare supposed to have cracked the long bridge over the Lagan at Belfast. Tobegin with, all went well. A following wind brought the expedition next dayinto Bangor Bay, where they landed with nothing more than token resistancefrom Maxwell's dragoons. Patrols found the neighbourhood of Belfast clear ofJacobites and a rousing welcome from the local protestants.

Schomberg was cautious, and it was not till 17 August, four days after landing,that he entered Belfast. It was 17 August by the old calendar; by the moreaccurate new calendar it was 27 August, getting on for autumn. If anythingworth while was to be done that campaigning season he would clearly have tomove south without delay. But his cavalry had not arrived and would not cometill near the end of August, and he thought it safer to dispose of Carrickfergus,which was held by two Jacobite regiments. A sevens-day siege, in which the

r Cal. S.P. iom., i68ygo, pp. 188/220.

UNPOPULAR RA,UCP T HOUNSLOW HEAHSA PPIST NOT LONG BEFOREAA PAPIST NOT LONGHBEFORE IN SHALES BEEN ATHECONTJAMESO

Schomberg at Dundalk, 1689 93Williamites attacked both by land and by sea, was needed before Carrickfergussurrendered. By the end of August further units had arrived from England. Bythen the total force that had arrived from England was as follows:

Infantry—18 battalions (i Dutch, 3 Huguenot, 13 newly raised in England).Cavalry—4 regiments (1 Huguenot, 3 English).Dragoons—1 English regiment.2

The approximate strength of the expeditionary force at this date was 13,000foot and 1,500 horse.

In addition, Schomberg had been joined at Carrickfergus by 500 horse fromEnniskillen. They were apparently poorly armed and mounted, but were toprove very useful. A Williamite account described them as "some withoutboots and pistols, others with pistols but without carabines, some with one pistoland a carabine without a sword, others without all, with only a fowling/pieceor firelock, most of their horses small and poor; yet such have been the courageand actions of these men as is scarce credible, especially the routing 3,000 menunder MacCarthy, taking him prisoner and killing double their own number.These brave men the general made welcome and will soon be better armed andaccoutred."3

Schomberg now seemed in a strong enough position to justify a move south,particularly as he could expect further reinforcements from Enniskillen andDerry and more cavalry regiments were to come from Britain. His chief shortagewas in transport/horses, waggons and provisions, which had not yet arrived.He decided to start for Dundalk and rely on transport and supplies being sentby sea to meet him at Carlingford.

He set out on 2 September, marching south through Lisburn, Hillsboroughand Loughbrickland. At Newry, ten miles on from Loughbrickland, there wasa Jacobite force of cavalry under the Duke of Berwick. The Inniskillings wereall agog to engage this force, but were ordered not to advance, which upset them.They said they "should never thrive so long as they were under orders". However,Berwick retreated after burning Newry, and Schcmberg met no opposition asfar as Dundalk, which the Jacobites abandoned without burning it. ButSchomberg's army was already in trouble during the five days it took him tomarch the fifty miles from Belfast to Dundalk. The weather was wet and thewind made it difficult to pitch tents. Provisions were scarce because there werenot enough horses to carry such supplies as he could have got in Belfast.The country had been devastated by Berwick and all the cattle had beenremoved.

The best account of the operation is by the Rev. George Story, who was achaplain to one of Schomberg's regiments and wrote what, with some justification,he called "An impartial history" of the war. In addition, we have, on theWilliamite side, Schomberg's own dispatches and several diaries and memoirsof those who, like Colonel Bellingham, took part in the expedition. On theJacobite side we have King James's own account, as well as some journals,

2 G. Story, Impartial history, p. 11.3 A journal of what has passed in the north of Ireland, 1689.


notably the journal of Captain John Stevens, an English Jacobite. The move/ments of both sides are well documented.

George Story was himself a victim of the supply/shortage. He says that bythe time Schomberg's army got to Newry he "was forced to go and dig potatoeswhich made the greatest part of a dinner to better men than myself, and if it wasso with us it may easily be remarked that the poor soldiers had harder times ofit."4 The men were already falling sick on the march; some of them were leftby the roadside and had to be picked up later by rescue parties. Schombergwas worried by the shortage of bread; he gave orders that whatever bread therewas should be for the men and not for the officers (because he judged that theofficers could shift better). He insisted on sending the artillery horses back toBelfast to fetch bread. When the transport officer protested that artillery horseswere never used for anything but artillery work Schomberg said he would ratherbreak rules than let his men starve. Whether or not he should have allowed thesituation to arise, there is something attractive about his humane concern forhis men.

When the army reached Dundalk the ships had not yet turned up at Carting'ford and the supply position was getting precarious. The Jacobites had overlooked2,000 of Lord Bellew's sheep, and the starving soldiers of Schomberg's armydevoured them greedily, which "cast a great many into fluxes".5 One of thosewho fell sick was a Swiss soldier in one of the Huguenot regiments, Jean/FrancoisMorsier, who kept a journal from which I quote: "The prevailing sickness wasthe bloody flux, caused by the bad food, which was almost entirely limited tooat'cakes, which are small cakes of the thickness of your little finger made fromoat/flour dried in front of the fire, and the drink of fresh beer and water from astagnant bog, in some places well-water which the soldiers brought to sell inthe camp at half a sou the bottle. My sickness got so bad that I could not bearit any longer, being tormented by a burning fever from which I could get reliefonly by putting my head and forehead against the wet tent, for it rained con-tinually. So I was sent to a castle named Karlinfort, where the sick were. Allthe places were taken; I had to go into a pigeon/loft at the top of the house;two or three cadets and soldiers did their best to clean it up and we slept on thefloor." They were given two bowls of gruel a day, and gradually he got better.Later on he found a peasant nearby who grew cabbages, which he had cookedand well seasoned, and eventually he recovered his strength, more fortunate thanmany.6

Sending horses back to Belfast did not help Schomberg's prospects for anadvance southwards. In fact, Dundalk was the farthest point he reached, and forthe next two months he remained encamped there. George Story, who had plentyof time to examine the camp site, has provided in his history a detailed map ofthe lay/out. He shows the main camp on lowlying ground at the foot of thehills, straddling the Newry road about a mile short of Dundalk. It was in two

4 Story, Impartial history, p. 42.5 B. M., Add. MS 5540.6 J . Morsier in Soldats suisses an service etranger, vi, 90.

Schombergat Dundalk, 1689 95lines, of which the front one was the longer, stretching on to the modern racecourse. Story describes the terrain as "low, moist ground". Nowadays it is mostlysolid enough, but it is very flat and the drainage has certainly been improved sinceSchomberg's time. Even so, there are a good many areas with rushes on them, andthe name of the townland at the rear of the camp is Annies, which means marshes.

Dundalk had been abandoned by the Jacobites, and Schomberg might havebeen expected to use the town as his rear/base and to have put his camp on thehigh ground to the south of it. The reason why he did not do so is probablythat he was anxious to keep a firm grip on his communications with Carlingfordand with the land/link through the Moyry Pass to Newry and Belfast. Story'smap gives a good impression of the area, with hills in the rear and a plain threadedwith streams in the centre. A prominent feature was the Castletown river, witha single bridge linking the camp to Dundalk town. When the Jacobite army wasapproaching, Schomberg established advanced posts outside the town, runningin a line from south to north on the inland side. The town itself was walled. Theposts were protected with retrenchments or earthworks at strategic points. ADutch regiment was stationed at the most advanced post, behind it were Englishdragoons and then the Inniskilling foot. The Inniskilling dragoons had aposition to themselves near the hilly ground to the west. The artillery was wellback, between the main camp and the Castletown river. Schomberg himselfhad his quarters in Castletown, a magnificent four/storey fortress on the southside of the river. At that time it belonged to the Bellew family; now it holds thedormitories of a girl's school. Schomberg's whole position was evidently laidout with an eye to defence rather than to attack or advance.

Meanwhile the Jacobite army had been recovering from the near panic itwas in at the end of July. The French had advised James that Dublin could notbe defended against Schomberg's army, and that the proper course was to burnit, retire to Athlone, and hold the line of the Shannon. James showed unusualspirit and rejected this advice. Tyrconnell backed him up, new levies wereraised to fill the gaps in the army, and it was decided to march north and faceSchomberg, in spite of a serious shortage of weapons. James himself led theway with a small advance guard, and he was at Drogheda on 26 August, whileSchomberg was still besieging Carrickfergus. The duke of Berwick was sentnorth as far as Newry to conduct a delaying action with a force of cavalry whilethe rest of the Jacobite army was assembling. It was a great relief to the Jacobitesthat Schomberg had not marched south and attacked them before they wereready. By 10 September most of the Jacobite army was at Drogheda and readyto hold the south bank of the Boyne against Schomberg, whose advance wasdaily expected. The French ambassador, who was with James at Drogheda,thought there was no reason why Schomberg should not advance that far.James had forbidden any scorched/earth tactics south of Newry, and the plainof Louth was full of grass, wheat and oats. The ambassador wondered whetherSchomberg had been waiting for his cavalry—which was, in fact, the case—or why he had wasted his time besieging Carrickfergus. The protestants ofCounty Louth also expected Schomberg to advance towards Drogheda and hadcollected a quantity of ale, bread and other provisions for him. When he did not

DORMOES OF A GIRLSCHOOLE.OMBERGWHOLEPOSITIOWAS EVIDENTIL

96 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730come the Irish army seized these supplies. Schomberg was under strong pressureto advance from the Irish protestants in his own force. On n September he wroteto William: "My Irish lords are constantly for giving battle; they are eager toget back to their own estates". On 15 September he wrote again to William:"Some of the colonels wish to go to Ardee and talk about giving battle as if itwere only a trifle. I do not think it will be to your majesty's service to quit thisposition"—'that is, his Dundalk camp—'"where we can always maintain com/munication with Belfast".7

Encouraged by Schomberg's failure to advance, James moved forward tomeet him. On 14 September he went from Drogheda to Ardee, where desertersbrought the news that Schomberg was very short of supplies, particularly bread.So the bold James pushed on further with his cavalry and crossed the river Fane,making his headquarters at Knockbridge, about five miles from Dundalk.A contemporary account says that James's quarters were in "some very meancottages where his bedchamber was a poor Irish cabin (hard to creep into),without door, window or chimney; the French ambassador and the duke ofTyrconnell had suitable apartments in his majesty's quarters".8 The first nightat Knockbridge was spent in fear and trembling: no one went to bed, and veryfew went to sleep, except for the advanced guards and the sentries; the Frenchgeneral, making a midnight inspection, found them all asleep except one.9

But Schomberg gave them no cause for anxiety. The French ambassadorcould not understand it: Schomberg must be far weaker than they thought;or else he must be planning a rising in Dublin and be trying to entice James'sarmy away from Dublin to steal a march on it and cut off its retreat to the city;or perhaps he was going to send help by sea to the protestant rebels in Dublinwhile he kept James engaged near Dundalk. In fact, something of the last kindwas tried, though there was no deliberate plan to lure James up to Dundalk.Captain George Rooke of the English navy brought a squadron of twelve shipsdown the coast of County Dublin, a clear threat to James's communications.Rooke's ships came into Dublin bay and there was great excitement on the partof the protestant fifth column. But the Jacobite militia under Colonel SimonLuttrell drew up on the shore to such good effect that Rooke withdrew.

The fact was that Schomberg was so worried by the lack of supplies and bythe deficiencies of his army that he decided to take up a purely defensive position.The area he chose for his camp was certainly defensible against enemy attack,but it suffered from a number of disadvantages. It was lowlying and, as itwas under the lee of the mountains, it was particularly liable to rainfall, whichit got in abundance during that very wet autumn. A diary kept by one of Schonvberg's staff describes the conditions: "The already spongy ground was so softenedby the rainy season, which set in earlier than usual, that one could not pitch atent that the rain did not throw down".10 The fact that the camp was penned in

7 Cal. S.P. dom., i68$'<)o, pp. 252, 256.8 A relation of what most remarkably happened during the last campaign, Dublin, 1689.9 J. Hogan, ed., Negotiations de M. le comte d'Auaux, p. 473.

10 J. F. A . Kazner, Leben Friedrichs von Schonberg, ii, app. lx.

GENTRLMAKINGA MIDNIGHT CTION,FOOUDTEMALLASLLEEPONE9

Schomberg at Dundalk, 1689 97

to the rear by difficult mountain country restricted freedom of manoeuvre andmade it hard to find forage for the horses. The sanitary problems presented byany standing camp were magnified by the flat and watery nature of the site.

Schomberg's failure to advance south of Dundalk betrayed that he was introuble. James's chief commander, Marshal Rosen, said he was sure that Schonvberg "wanted something necessary for their going forwards".11 This encouragedJames to bring up his main army as far as the river Fane and then to come almostup to Dundalk and challenge Schomberg to a fight. A French source puts thestrength of James's army at 13,600 on 20 September and at 19,989 on 2 October.A review of Schomberg's army made on 26 September and 1 October gave atotal strength of i8,888.12

James's challenge was made in style according to George Story's account:"Saturday the 21st about 9 o'clock in the morning (it being a very clear sunshinyday) our camp was alarmed: the enemy displayed their standard royal and alldrew out, both horse and foot, bringing along a very handsome field/train. Agreat body of their horse drew up to the south-west of the town about half amile from our outworks". The main body of James's army was behind thehorse, drawn up in two lines. Some of Schomberg's officers were eager to comeout and fight, but Schomberg would only say "Let them alone and we willsee what they will do". Story's account goes on: "Meantime the duke, as ifthere was no fear of danger for all this . . . alighted from his horse and sat himdown upon a little hill where he seemed to sleep for some time, though Ibelieve his thoughts were at work how to repulse the enemy if they should attackhim."13

The result was an anti/climax. Schomberg declined James's challenge, andJames thought Schomberg's camp too strong to attack. That afternoon hewithdrew his army to the line of the river Fane where they stayed for the nextfortnight. There it was on solid rising ground with less rainfall than in Schonvberg's camp under the hills. To quote Story: "It would often rain all day uponus when there was not one drop in the enemy's camp; this they used to call ajudgment, but it was because we lay in a hollow at the bottoms of the mountains,and they upon a high sound ground".34

Schomberg gave William his explanation of James's advance: "This morningsome squadrons of the enemy appeared near this camp, a bog being between us,and then three or four regiments of the infantry, whose colours we saw and judgedby their cries that King James was passing before their battalions. I believe thatall these movements are intended to draw some deserters from our army, theyhaving spread about a quantity of English and French printed billets. This hasobliged me to examine more narrowly the regiments of French infantry and Ifind that the greater part of the recruits which were drawn from deserters about

11 Story, Continuation of the impartial history, p. 9.12 F./E. de Vault, Memoire . . . de la correspondancc . . . pendant la guerre en Irlande (1689/91),

i, 372 (Paris, Archives de guerrej; Cal. S.P. iom., 168^0, p. 273.13 Story, Impartial history, pp. 22 3.14 Ibid., pp. 38-9.

98 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Brussels and Frankfort were papists".16 The printed billets were a frank invitationto desert: "Next to the honour of never engaging in a bad cause there is nothingbraver than to desert it". They made much of the mortality in Schomberg'scamp, called it without parallel in history, and suggested that it was a judgementof providence.16 Desertion was an important factor in seventeenth/century warfare,and Schomberg was badly shaken by the unreliability of his so-called Huguenots,on whom he had been depending to make up for the rawness of his Englishtroops. Some of them were found to have been corresponding with the enemy,and six of the ringleaders were hanged on a pair of gallows specially erected besidethe road leading from the camp into Dundalk. Nearly 200 others were sentback in disgrace to England.

Schomberg's failure to meet James's challenge was a great boost for Jacobitemorale, and the most was made of the incident in a Jacobite broadsheet: "Theday was very clear, so that the brightness of the scythes with which most of thefoot were armed instead of pikes seemed to strike some terror into the heart ofthe enemy."17

William had sent Schomberg to Ireland to conquer the country, not to takea defensive line, and he wrote him several letters urging him to advance. Schonvberg's answers reveal the troubles of his army and his determination to remain onthe defensive. On 20 September, when James's troops had got as far as the riverFane but had not yet come near Dundalk, he wrote: "I do not see why we shouldrisk anything on our side. We have one little river in front of us and they another".18

That day, he wrote, eleven ships had come round from Carlingford into DundalkBay, so that the fear of actual starvation was removed. But Shales had not yetsent horses or carts for carrying provisions, and if the enemy laid waste to thecountry between Dundalk and Drogheda it would be very difficult to advance.A week later he was still in a defensive mood, and wrote to William: "So faras I can judge King James wants to have a battle before the armies separate onaccount of the bad season. So it seems to me that we should keep on the defensive. . . since there are still troops to come from Scotland and Denmark: by entrenchingmyself a little better I can continue in this camp without the enemy being able toforce me".19 On 6 October he was still resisting William's pressure: "apparentlyYour Majesty thinks we should push the enemy before our army perishes fromdisease or before the reinforcements arrive that the enemy expect from France.I should very much like to do what Your Majesty is so eager for. I wouldhave marched tomorrow, but as Your Majesty will see from the opinion of thegeneral officers the whole army is without shoes and could not march two dayswithout half going barefoot. So we shall have to wait for shoes from England.Not all the provision waggons have arrived, and the horses of those we have arein a very bad state. Shales did not even trouble to embark 120 artillery horses

15 J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (Dublin, 1773), iii (2), 34.16 J. T. Gilbert, ed., A Jacobite narrative, pp. z$i'}.17 A relation of what most remarkably happened.18 Dalrymple, p . 28.19 Ibid., p. 36.


which have been left at Chester." Besides the lack of supplies Schombergcomplained of the quality of his army: "The colonels who raised new regiments,and particularly the Irish lords, thought of nothing but getting boys on thecheap . . . The officers are incapable, but their slackness and laziness are worsestill. . . Although the cavalry are not so recently raised, the officers take no careof their men's horses. They are so used to lodging in inns when they are on themarch that they are quite astonished by this type of warfare . . . The colonelstake so little care of their regiments that half the pikes are broken, and so arehalf the firelocks and muskets".20 If this was so, it is odd that Schomberg doesnot seem to have taken any disciplinary action against the defaulters. Among thetroops he thought best of were the Inniskillings. He told William: "TheInniskilling troops appear to be keen and I believe they are more dependablethan the regiments of the Irish lords . . . It would be better to break some ofthe regiments newly raised in England and to keep all the Inniskillings. I hopetheir clothes will come soon; they will then look much better. I think they wouldbe good shots if they had firelocks".21

Schomberg combined pessimism about his own army with an exaggeratedview of James's, which was certainly as raw and as badly equipped. He wroteto William: "The enemy are not only strong in number but also well disciplined;the site of their camp is as well chosen as the ablest generals could contrive".23

But the general of whom Schomberg had most to fear was General Fever.Sickness in the Dundalk camp assumed appalling proportions, the combinedresult of marshy ground, heavy rain and insanitary habits. George Story gives agrim account of conditions in the disease/ridden camp. To protect them fromthe damp ground the men had been ordered to build wooden huts, thatchedwith straw, and to bring in fern to strew on the floor. However, "most of themwere so lazy that they would starve rather than fetch fern or anything else to keepthemselves dry and clean withal; which certainly was the greatest occasion ofdistempers, sickness and death itself, and many of them when they weredead were incredibly lousy".23 A number of the sick were sent to Carh'ngfordto await shipment to Belfast. Story goes on to say: "An officer was sent out ofevery regiment to look after them; but for all this a great many died miserably,and several officers did not take the care that was necessary, nor was there eitherdrugs or indeed chirurgeons to look after the sick". Others who could not bemoved were piled into huts in the camp: "The chaplain . . . went to see themonce a day, but always at his going found some dead. Those that were aliveseemed very sorry when the others came to be buried, not that they were dead (forthey were the hardest/hearted to one another in the world), but whilst they hadthem in their huts they either served to lay between them and the cold wind orat least were serviceable to sit or lie upon".24

20 Ibid., pp. 42/9.21 Ibid., pp. 29'3O.22 Ibid., p. 49.23 Story, Impartial history, p. 27.24 Ibid., pp. 26, 30.

100 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730The chief killer seems to have been dysentery, the product of insanitary habits

in a fixed camp, but the repeated references to bee may suggest typhus. TheEnglish troops suffered worst. Story notes that a Dutch regiment were so wellhutted that not more than eleven of them died during the whole campaign. Thesurgeons were very badly provided with drugs to deal with flux and fever,"having in their chests only some little things for wounds*'.26 The Frenchapothecary was put under arrest for failing to bring medicines. The physician/general of the army was Dr. Thomas Lawrence, who belonged to a well/knownmedical family and later became chief physician to Queen Anne, a post ofconsiderable responsibility. The only reference to his activities at Dundalk isto a conference he held on 13 October with all the surgeons, apparently todiscuss what methods should be adopted to deal with the flux and fever, whichwere then very serious. Each regiment had its chirurgeon and chirurgeon'smate, but their standing was much less than that of a physician. Hospitals wereset up at Carlingford, and are said to have been in charge of French doctors.

On 6 October James drew his army back from the line of the Fane to Ardee,which remained his position for the rest of the month. The site was not so good,the weather was very bad and James's army became severely affected by sicknessand shortage of supplies. One of the chief complaints was about the lack of salt.Neither huts nor tents kept out the water; the soldiers had to lie on the soaking'wet ground and live on half-cooked meat. The death-roll rose alarmingly. Jamesfortified Ardee and left a garrison to hold it as an advanced post, and at thebeginning of November he and the main army withdrew to Dublin. A fewdays later Schomberg withdrew his army from Dundalk and went back toUlster, making Lisburn his headquarters for the winter.

One of Schomberg's chief problems was getting his sick away. As many ofthem as possible were crowded on to the ships at Dundalk or Carlingford.Tents from the camp were put on board to keep the sick men warm. Nearly2,000 of them were put on board, and 800 were dead by the time the ships reachedBelfast. Some ships were found to have all their passengers dead. Conditionsfor those who were sent by road were even worse. In Story's words: "All theroads from Dundalk to Newry and Carlingford were full of nothing but deadmen who, ever as the waggons jolted, some of them died and were thrown offas fast . . . As for the great hospital at Belfast there were 3,762 that died in itfrom 1 November to 1 May, as appears from the tallies given in by the men thatburied them: so that upon the whole matter we lost high half of the men wetook over with us."26

James was well satisfied to have challenged Schomberg and to have had hischallenge declined. In his own words: "Thus the campaign ended very muchto the king's honour and advantage . . . The miserable diseases which afflictedthe enemy's camp was a visible mark of God's judgment on that wicked andrebellious generation."27 The official Jacobite account expressed a similar

25 Ibid., p. 39.26 Ibid.27 J. S. Clarke , Life of James II, ii, 384.


satisfaction: "The mighty expectations of the great Schomberg and his rebelliousadherents were defeated and he marched back towards Belfast with the weakremainder of his army, being diminished much above one/half by extremesickness and want of necessary subsistence, though he had a fleet to attend himand a whole province behind him."28

After Schomberg's withdrawal Dundalk became an advanced post for theJacobite army, which found it in an appalling condition. Captain John Stevensdescribed the scene: "Besides the infinite number of graves, a vast number ofdead bodies was found there unburied, and not a few yet breathing, but almostdevoured with lice and other vermin".29

From the Williamite point of view Dundalk had been a disaster. Instead 01making a rapid conquest of Ireland Schomberg had got bogged down in adefensive operation which had left his army horribly weakened by disease andmortality and had contributed to a remarkable recovery of Jacobite morale.It was going to be necessary for William himself to undertake the hazardousand altogether undesirable task of coming to Ireland in 1690. Story's accountshows that Schomberg was severely criticised, though Story does his best tofind excuses for him and to point out the difficulties with which he had tograpple.

There was the inevitable post mortem, and the English house of commonsheld an investigation into the shortcomings of the expedition. The result wasto make a scapegoat of Shales. An address was presented to William: "ThatMr. John Shales, the commissarygerieral of the provisions, be forthwith takeninto custody and all his accounts, papers and stores be secured, and that a fitperson or persons be put into his place."30 William granted the request, andSchomberg was ordered to arrest Shales and impound his papers, keeping asharp look/out for fraud in the accounts. Shales was sent over to England tobe prosecuted for high crimes and misdemeanours, but I cannot find that hewas ever punished. He continued to hold an official post until his death in1695, when his office was taken over by his son.

The house of commons' complaints were also aimed at higher game thanShales. A second address was presented to William, criticising "the want ofability or integrity in those who have had the direction of the said affairs and bywhose advice not only the reducing of Ireland has been obstructed, but thetreasure of this kingdom wasted and the lives of many brave soldiers and ableseamen lost without any such suitable effect as might reasonably have beenexpected."31 Schomberg's reputation suffered severely. In the words of a con/temporary: "It has cast such a mist upon him that the remainder of his life willnot be able to dissipate."32

28 A relation of what most remarkably happened.29 R. H. Murray, edL, The Journal of John Stevens, p. 96.30 Commons'jn. (Eng.J, x, 295.31 Ibid., p. 296.32 Cal. S.P. iom., i68<)'<)o, p . 382.

POINT

Frederick, 1st Duke of Schomberg (engraving after Kneller)

Detail from the engraving by Theodore Maas of the Battle of the Boyne (1690).

104 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730William was very disappointed in Schomberg, and when he came to Ireland

he treated him with marked coldness. It was with the greatest reluctance thatWilliam took the decision to come here in 1690, a move that was very risky andalso prevented him from dealing with the critical situation on the continent.He made it clear that he came to the decision only because he thought thatSchomberg's expedition had been mishandled and that unless he himself wentto Ireland "nothing worth while would be done". He took care to see that thesupply position was drastically overhauled and that he was provided with amuch larger and better equipped army than Schomberg had had. Schomberg'smistake had been to allow himself to be so ill served in transport, equipment,provisions and men and to have confined his dissatisfaction to verbal protests.He had not long to live. He was killed on the south bank of the Boyne in thethick of the fighting. He got no state funeral and for a memorial he had to waitfor forty years till Jonathan Swift, getting no response from the Schomberg family,put up a tablet to him in St. Patrick's Cathedral which contained the bittercomment that strangers' regard for his bravery counted for more than the ties offamily/feeling. Dundalk had proved the grave of a great reputation.

EYE-WITNESSES OF THE BOYNE

the only one to receive annual attention. It was undoubtedly the mostinternationally celebrated event in Irish history and its result was eagerly

awaited in many countries of Europe. At the same time there has been a greatdeal of controversy about it. Was it the glorious and overwhelming victorythat Williamite tradition has made it out to be ? Or, as a Frenchman put it,was it a mere skirmish, only worth considering because it was the nearest approachto a battle that William ever won ? Macaulay has described it in one of his bestpurple passages,26 but his interpretation has been strongly challenged by a numberof non/Williamite historians, including Hilaire Belloc27 and our own President,Sir Charles Petrie.28 A particularly severe critic was Demetrius Boulger, whosebook The battle of the Boyne appeared about fifty years ago.

The questions at issue are whether James and his army should have made abetter showing; whether the Boyne position was tenable; whether the Jacobites'disposal of their forces and the behaviour of those forces was the best that couldhave been expected in the circumstances. On the other hand, did William failto make the most of his superiority in numbers and equipment; were his militarydispositions sound; and, if so, why did the Jacobite army get away with suchcomparatively small losses ?

It may therefore be of interest to examine some of the eye/witness accountsof the battle and see whether they can be used to provide answers to these questions.There are a great many eyewitness accounts on both sides. It was an inter-*national battle, and those who wrote about it were French, Dutch, Danish,German, Swiss, English, Scottish, Anglo/Irish, and even an Irishman whosediary, written in Latin, was shown to Macaulay.yy. y.catulay. he seemsula He seenms ti he He seems to have been aschoolmaster who had joined up for the emergency. Other Irish eye-witnessesno doubt helped to provide material for the two Irish histories of the war—theFingall manuscript called the' Light to the blind,'

29

and thehe Destruction of Cyprus,written by Charles O'Kelly,30 who had a son at the Boyne.

The accounts vary enormously in quality and frequently contradict one anotheron points of detail. They range from letters written on the spot to the memoirsof old soldiers written many years later. Taken together, they show how difficultit is to give a satisfactory detailed account of a battle. They can be divided intothree categories: letters, diaries and journals, narratives and memoirs. Of these,the letters have the great advantage of being dated. One instinctively gives moreweight to a letter written within a few days of an event than to memoirs that mayhave been written years after it. Letters may go wrong because of prejudice orthe wish to impress the recipient, or because the writer got a garbled impressionof events in other parts of the battlefield; but at any rate they are fresh evidence.Some of the Williamite correspondence is very fresh evidence indeed. There are

8

HE Boyne is probably the most famous of Irish battles; at any rate it isT

106 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730two letters written on the morning of July I—the day of the actual battle (I usethe old style in giving dates). There are several from Duleek, written on July 2.The longest and most interesting is to the King of Denmark from the Danishenvoy ' writing in haste on a drum and not at all at my ease.'19 Others writtenthat day were from Hop, the Dutch envoy/extraordinary, to the States Generalin Holland,16 and from Sir Robert Southwell, William's Secretary of State forIreland, to Lord Nottingham, his opposite number in England.23 The officialWilliamite account was drawn up that day by Bentinck, Lord Portland, andcopies sent to Holland and England for publication.20 Williamite diaries includethose of Col. Thomas Bellingham, of Castlebellingham, who knew the localcountryside well and was employed as William's A.D.C. ; then there were thediary of Gideon Bonnivert, a French trooper, and two Danish journals. Themost detailed Williamite narrative was by George Story, chaplain of LordDrogheda's regiment, which was at Oldbridge. His account, styled the Trueand impartial history, forms the backbone of Macaulay's and is the standWilliamite version.24

On the Jacobite side the first letter was written from Kinsale on July 4 by theMarquis de la Hoguette, who saw James off to France.2 The next was writtenat sea on July 9 by the French Lt./Gen. Lery, who went with James.5 Lauzun,the French commander, wrote from Limerick on July 14.4 All of them wereanxious to minimise their own part in the defeat, and some of them were inclinedto turn the Irish into scape/goats. The fullest narrative account on the Jacobiteside is by James himself.3 Another interesting account is given in the Journal ofJohn Stevens, an Englishman who was a captain in the Grand Prior's regiment.Th e Grand Prior was Berwick's younger brother and a colonel at the age ofseventeen. Berwick's memoirs also describe the battle.1

A comparative analysis of all the available versions would be too long and tooconfusing. But I propose to examine some of them in an attempt to establishthe broad features of the battle.

James's army, about 25,000 strong, crossed the Boyne on Sunday, June 29,in two columns, one over the bridge at Drogheda, the other over the ford atOldbridge.6 Lauzun says that the infantry marched over the ford at low tide,the drummers beating their drums without having to lift them over their knees.4The Jacobite army took up its position on the southern bank with its right a milefrom Drogheda and its left at Oldbridge.2'4'5 William's army, about 36,000strong, arrived the next day—June 30—and drew up on the high ground to thenorth of the river with its centre opposite Oldbridge.2'23'24

On the Jacobite side there were differences of opinion about the prospects.Lauzun thought that it was not possible to put up any resistance. He later wrotethat on the day he reached the Boyne he had reconnoitred upstream towardsSlane and found it fordable everywhere.4 On the other hand, the French Lt./Gen.Lery thought that the position taken up was good and the most advantageous fora battle that could have been selected between Dundalk and Dublin; hethought that the prospects of victory were favourable.5 James himself wrote inhis memoirs that he found * that post an indifferent good one, and indeed thecountry afforded no better.' He said he knew he was in a weak position, but

Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne 107

had no alternative to risking a battle there.3 It is worth noting that a couple ofmonths earlier, before William reached Ireland, Schomberg had written to himthat the Boyne was the most likely place for the Jacobites to stand, and the bestplan would be to cross it at Navan, much higher up the river.31 The most obviouspoint about the position on June 30 is that William's right was already threateningto outflank James's left.

On the Williamite side the view seems to have been that the river, with ahostile army in position on the other side, presented a formidable obstacle.The entry for June 30 in a Danish journal says that the Jacobite army was postedvery advantageously and held the crossing strongly.11 Portland's official accountsays that William's first opinion was that crossing the fords held by the enemywas not only difficult but almost impracticable.24 Robert Parker, who was thenserving in the 18th Foot, later wrote in his memoirs that when William took aview of the enemy he observed that they were strongly posted and saw plainlythat it would be a difficult matter to force them from their ground unless somemeasures were taken before the battle which might oblige them to break the orderin which they were drawn up.18 There was some artillery fire from both sidesthat day (in the course of which William got his minor wound), but no seriousfighting. The entry in the Danish journal said that many people urged that thebest course for the Williamite army would have been to make a direct attack onthe evening of June 30, or at any rate to let some regiments try the crossing andsee what show the enemy would put up, but this plan was turned down asWilliam was determined never to undertake anything on a Monday.12

William held a council of war that evening, which is described in the Danishenvoy's letter of July 2. He says there was a difference of opinion. One viewwas that of the Duke of Schomberg, supported by some of the English generals,that the best plan would be to make a false attack at Oldbridge (and thus focusthe enemy's attention on that point), and to send the main part of the army fouror five miles upstream during the night to cross the river at a ford and attack theenemy in the flank. The second view was that of the Dutch general CountSolms, which was to force a crossing at Oldbridge in the teeth of the enemy.This appeared to William to be the bolder plan and therefore (added the envoy)the more in accordance with his enterprising character. But he thought it ratherrisky and decided on a compromise between the two plans. Duke Schomberg'sson, Count Maynard Schomberg, with the greater part of the cavalry was tocross the river at daybreak at the ford four or five miles upstream and try to contactthe enemy at about 9 a.m. (an oddly long interval to allow). At the same momentWilliam with the main part of the army was to attack in front and force the rivercrossing; this was to be between 8 and 9 because the tide would then be at theebb.19 In fact, according to Hilaire Belloc, the tide would be at the ebb between9.30 and 10 and the crossing at Oldbridge seems to have begun rather later.27

There is some doubt whether the plan was for the right wing to cross at a fordor at Slane bridge. Lt.'Gen. Douglas's account of the council says it wasintended to march towards the bridge.14

On the Jacobite side, both James and Lauzun give some account of the stepstaken to meet the threat from a Williamite move upstream. Lauzun says he

108 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730posted O'Neill's dragoons at Slane bridge on June 29 with orders to keep sendingout advance parties.4 James puts this operation on the evening of the 30th.He says the thought the Williamites might either march upstream to cross atSlane or try to force the ford at Oldbridge. He therefore ordered the baggageto be packed so as to leave the ground clear for a battle at Oldbridge, and alsoordered O'Neill's dragoons to defend the Slane crossing as long as they couldwithout being cut to pieces. James thought that the enemy crossing at Slanewould either engage the Jacobite army or march straight for Dublin, which hesaid they might easily have done at any rate with a detached body of horse anddragoons, being so much superior in numbers to the Jacobites.3 Lauzun saysthat on the night of the 30th he reported to James that the enemy were extendingtheir right towards Slane far beyond the Jacobite left.4 A council of war washeld in which it was decided to move the Jacobite position to the left at daybreak.2

There are a number of discrepancies in the accounts of the Williamite rightwing. Some of them mention Douglas as the leader rather than Count Schombergand there are variations as regards place, time and numbers. Slane bridge hadfigured in the preliminary plans of both sides, but it is doubtful whether anycrossing took place at Slane. Story says the right wing were first ordered to passall at Slane, but being better informed several regiments were commanded topass at other fords between the camp and Slane. His map shows a point halfwaybetween Slane and Rosnaree as where the right wing of the horse crossed.24

The most direct evidence for the movements of the right wing is in a letter writtennext day from Duleek by Count Schomberg's adjutant, addressed to the Count'swife. He says that his force—cavalry, dragoons, infantry and five small cannon—were to go upstream to a ford five English miles from the camp and try to crossif possible. They found on arrival at the ford that it was guarded by 1,200 horse.These must have been O'Neill's dragoons, though the number is seriouslyexaggerated—possibly to impress the Countess with her husband's bravery.Portland's official account was nearer the mark in estimating the opposing forceas eight squadrons. (It is interesting that the dragoons were considered to behorse: evidently they fought mounted.) Count Schomberg began by sending100 mounted grenadiers down to the ford to draw the enemy's fire; they werefollowed by Dutch dragoons. When they reached the ford the enemy began tofire, but the dragoons plunged into the river. The enemy charged them, but theCount observed that the charge had thrown the enemy into some disorder and,sword in hand, he led the dragoons through the water. He then charged theenemy so effectively that he tumbled them one against the other and they weredriven back two miles towards the main enemy force. Count Schomberg'sinfantry were left behind to cross the river as best they could. The adjutant wasthen sent to report to William, who ordered Douglas to go to the Count's supportwith ten battalions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry.22 James, who was ofcourse not there, says that Count Schomberg crossed at Slane and was held upfor almost an hour by O'Neill's dragoon's.3 It is only from the ' Light to theblind '—one of the Irish histories—that we find that the bridge of Slane had beenbroken and that O'Neill had taken up a position at Rosnaree.29 It is probable thatthis version is correct and that O'Neill decided that it would be useless to guard

Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne 109the bridge at Slane leaving the Rosnaree ford unguarded. Lery, who commandedthe Jacobite cavalry on that wing says that the Williamite cavalry all passedover below Slane, the river being fordable everywhere for a mile above Oldbridge—a serious underestimate of the distance from Oldbridge to Rosnaree.5 Thelatter seems to be the place referred to by Gideon Bonnivert, who was a trooperin Count Schomberg's cavalry: ' next morning (July i) we were up at two ofthe clock and marched to gain a passage two miles off about five in the morning.The passage was a very steep hill and a shallow river at the bottom. That ledinto a very fine plain; as we came there we found a party of the enemy with four orfive pieces of artillery ready to receive us, but that did not daunt our men. Theywent down briskly, notwithstanding the continual fire upon us. The grenadiersand dragoons were first on the other side and we soon followed them.'9 This fitsfairly well with the topography of Rosnaree, if the steep hill is taken to be thaton the far side of the river. The most obvious ford—marked as such on theOrdnance Survey—is opposite the mill below Rosnaree, though the accountsindicate that the crossing was made at more than one place.

The Williamite force that took up a position south of the river near Rosnareeamounted to about a third of the whole army. The Jacobite reaction was to makea corresponding move to the left in considerable force. Lery commanded thecavalry on this wing and Lauzun accompanied him. James says that he orderedthe troops to follow Lauzun, believing that the enemy's main body was about tofollow its right wing. However, as he found Tyrconnell with the right wingof the horse and dragoons and two brigades of infantry in position at Oldbridgehe left them there and himself moved over to the left. There he found Lauzun'sforce drawn up in battle formation facing the Williamite right at a distance ofhalf a cannon shot, that is about 500 yards. James goes on to say that while hewas talking to Lauzun an A.D.C. came up with the news that theWilliamiteshad crossed at Oldbiidge and that Tyrconnell was beaten. So James whisperedin Lauzun's ear that the only hope was for Lauzun's, men to charge before theWilliamites opposed to him got the news from Oldbridge. However, Sarsfieldand Maxwell, who had been to see the ground, reported that a cavalry chargewas impossible as there were two double ditches with high banks and a littlebrook between them in the valley that separated the two forces. Much the sameaccount is given by Lery who says that Sarsfield reported to the King that twobottomless ditches would prevent him from attacking the enemy.3 A ratherdifferent story is told by Hoguette, another French general, who was anxious toshow his own courage and the feebleness of Lauzun. Hoguette says he askedLauzun why they were wasting time, to which Lauzun answered that he hadbeen told that a ravine and a marsh separated him from the enemy and preventedhim from advancing. Hoguette said the marsh was not so great and that if therewas a ravine it would have been quite easy to cross it while the enemy were stillat a distance; in any case they were in such a position that they would have tobeat the enemy or wait to be beaten. But Lauzun only answered that they wouldhave to march by the left towards Dublin.2

There is quite a formidable ravine where a stream joins the Boyne halfwaybetween Donore and Rosnaree. There is high ground stretching south from the


road with a steep boggy valley that divides into two and would present a con/siderable obstacle. This seems to fit the various accounts rather better than thesite marked in an eighteenth/century map which makes the two forces face oneanother further to the south. For instance, the Rev. Rowland Davies, who waschaplain to one of the Williamite regiments on that flank, says: ' we saw theenemy making towards us and that they drew up on the side of a hill in two lines,the river on their right.'13

We have two accounts by Williamite colonels of the trouble they had with thebog in this sector. One was Lord Meath, colonel of the i8th Foot, who wroteon July 5 to his lady friend in England to tell her that it was now quite safe forher to come over. He said: ' we drew up to enclose the enemy's whole army,but a damned deep bog lay between us; we could not soon pass it, which gavethem time to run for it.'17 The other is from Richard Brewer, colonel of the 12thFoot, who said: * there was two brigades of us that for want of knowing theground marched through such a bog that I thought the Divell himself couldnever have got through and so did [the enemy] or they had not faced us as theydid for half an hour almost within musket shot. But . . . a prisoner told methat as soon as they see us get over the bog it half broke their hearts. For my partI thought I should ne'er have got out of it.'10

The effect of William's manoeuvre towards Slane was to bring the greaterpart of the Jacobite army away from the key point at Oldbridge into a positionin which they took no effective part in the fighting. This part contained some ofJames's best troops, including Sarsfield's cavalry and all the French infantry.

The main fighting took place opposite the stretch of river from Oldbridge toDrybridge, a mile downstream. Most of the accounts of it are Williamite, andthey leave a somewhat confused impression, no doubt because the fighting wasitself confused and none of the witnesses could form a clear picture of the actionas a whole. Portland's official account tells us that three crossings were made atonce: the first at a good crossing where the enemy were advantageously placedin a little village on the opposite bank—that was Oldbridge; at the secondthe foot waded up to 'he armpits; but at the third ' the horse were fain to swim.'20

From other accounts, however, it appears that the crossings were staggered over aconsiderable length of time. Story says that the Dutch Blue Guards were the firstthat took the river at Oldbridge and that the action started at a quarter past ten.24

The Danes crossed at the second ford about a hundred yards lower down andtheir commander, the Duke of Wiirtemberg, says that he crossed about elevenwhen the Dutch were already engaged in action on the far side.25 From an accountit appears that the Duke of Schomberg was killed about midday and that itwas soon after that William himself crossed the river with the left wing of thehorse who went over at a very difficult and unusual place3—the maps showit at Drybridge.

The crossings seem to have given a good deal of trouble, what with the numbersin the water and the rising of the tide. Story says the Dutch marching in eightor ten abreast stopped the current, which made the Oldbridge ford deeper thanusual so that they were almost up to their waists.24 The Danes crossing a hundredyards lower had even more trouble, partly because they were in such a hurry to

Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne 111cross that they missed the line of the ford and were up to their shoulders and necks;they had to hold their muskets and powder above their heads.16 Their commandersolvtd the problem by having himself carried across on the shoulders of hisgrenadiers—the tallest of his troops.19 William himself had more trouble thananyone, crossing at the lowest point; his horse was bogged on the other sideand he had to dismount and have it dragged out of the mud—traditionally byan Inniskillinger called MacKinlay. Southwell says that the landing was soboggy that the King * was fain to walk three or four hundred paces so as to benear out of breath' ;23 the poor man was asthmatic.

During the early part of the action the Jacobite resistance was strong. Storysays that for over three quarters of an hour the fighting was so hot that many oldsoldiers said they never saw brisker work.24 This raises the question whether theJacobites could have prevented the crossing at Oldbridge if they had held thatsector in greater strength. The French general Hoguette made out that on the daybefore he had pressed to have batteries set up at Oldbridge and had pointed out aplace that would take the enemy both in front and in the flank; he also wantedearthworks to be made along the bank. He was disgusted that Lauzun woulddo nothing beyond stationing a single Irish battalion there.2 The Williamiteaccounts give little credit to the Irish infantry but show much more respect forthe cavalry and dragoons. The Duke of Wiirtemberg's comment was: ' theIrish cavalry behaved extremely well, but the foot behaved very badly.'25 A livelyaccount of this stage of the battle is given by the Danish envoy. ' The regimentof Dutch Guards was the first that crossed, the men being above their waistsin water. The enemy occupied a village on the bank, about which there are smallgardens enclosed by hedges. The Dutch rushed to the attack with such impetusthat their opponents immediately abandoned their position and our men, havingpursued them for some time, drew themselves up in battle formation to maintainthe ground they had gained. A moment later, three squadrons of King James'sbodyguard, which appeared to us to be very determined, rushed sword inhand upon this regiment, to whose support a regiment of French refugeesand some English regiments were hurrying. It defended itself so bravely thatthe Irish were twice obliged to retire with heavy loss and the Dutch remainedmasters of the position. The Duke of Schomberg, who had not yet crossedthe river . . ., seeing that if King James's bodyguard returned to the charge theDutch regiment might be overwhelmed, hastened to bring it assistance by urgingthe regiments mentioned, together with some cavalry squadrons, to cross withall speed. To ensure the success of the manoeuvre he himself crossed. Scarcelyhad he reached the opposite bank when King James's bodyguard returned to thecharge for the third time and with such intrepidity that it at length succeeded inbreaking the lines of the Dutch regiment, which had not yet got support from thetroops despatched for the purpose. They were, however, already in the riverand were firing from a distance on the Irish, who urged on by too great a zealhad rashly ventured as far as the street of the village. This gave us an opportunityof cutting them off, so that very few remained and our troops were left mastersof the situation.'19 A more epigrammatic account of the same action was givenby Col. Bellingham: * the enemy's horse of Tyrconnell's regiment behaved

112 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730themselves well, but our Dutch like angels.'8 William's Secretary/at/war forIreland, an Oxford don called George Clarke, writing his reminiscences manyyears later still remembered William's anxiety for his Dutch troops: ' The Kingwas in a good deal of apprehension for them, there not being any hedge or ditchbefore them nor any of our horse to support them, and I was so near His Majestyas to hear him say softly to himself " my poor Guards, my poor Guards, mypoor Guards," but when he saw them stand their ground and fire by platoonsso that the horse were forced to run away in great disorder, he breathed out aspeople used to after holding their breath upon a fright or suspense, and said hehad seen his Guards do that which he had never seen foot do in his life.'11

The chief problem of the Williamites was that of protecting infantry fromcavalry, now that pikes were being given up. Portland's account mentions thaton first reaching the far side several Williamite regiments were attacked bycavalry and dragoons and were in difficulties because they had no pikes.20 Thealternative means of defence was the chevaux'de'frise—an arrangement of spikused as a protective screen. Wiirtemberg says that two French Huguenot regimentswere overwhelmed by the Jacobite cavalry because they had no chevaux'de'frise ;25in contrast, another Danish account says * the enemy horse advanced on ouGuards, but as they found chevaux'de'jrise and vigorous firing they retired again.'

The decisive movement seems to have been that on the left led by Williamhimself with Dutch and Danish cavalry and Inniskillings. Several accountsmention the trouble that William's wound gave him and the difficulty he hadover carrying a sword. The contradictions in are these accounts (are a good exampleof how hard it is to be accurate in reporting a battle. According to GeneralDouglas, William was so crippled by his wound that he could hardly hold hissword.14 Portland says he held it in his left hand,21 and the Danish envoy sayshe carried nothing but a walking/stick.19 William and the left wing came intoconflict with Lt.'Gen. Richard Hamilton in the last serious fighting of the day.Macaulay says this was at what he calls Plottin Hall.28 Story says it was at a littlechurch and a village called Donore about half a mile from the river. From hismap the village was near the old church on top of the hill, some way from themodern village which is well down the slope.24 Southwell's description supportsthis. He gives a good account of the action, which illustrates how difficult itwas to distinguish friend from foe; both wore the same kind of uniform. Hisaccount is as follows: * it was about a mile further on the top of a hill wherewere some old walls that the enemy had well lined with firelocks. Here HisMajesty led up some Dutch troops, but before they had got in the Inniskillingershad made an assault on the other side and did very bravely at first, but espyinganother great party whom they took for the enemy just ready to surround themthey began to fly and did actively put in disorder the Dutch horse and all othersthat stood in their way. The place was unfortunately full of holes and dungpitsand the passage narrow; but above all the dust and smoke quite blinded them.His Majesty was here in the crowd of all drawing his sword '—that sword again—* and animating them that fled to follow him. His danger was great among theenemy's guns which killed thirty of the Inniskillingers on the spot. Nay one ofthe Inniskillingers came with a pistol cocked to His Majesty till he called out

Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne 113

" What, are you angry with your friends J " The truth is the clothes of friendsand foes are so much alike that His Majesty had had goodness to excuse all thatpassed.'23 What must be the same incident is referred to in a Danish journal:' when the Inniskillingers on one occasion pressed the enemy too closely he chasedthem back on to our cavalry. I certainly believe that in the confusion and thethick dust they and Donop's regiment [Danish cavalry] charged one anotherin the belief that they were charging the enemy.'12 A similar confusion ismentioned in the journal of a Huguenot called Dumont; he says he was justabout to run through what he took to be an enemy when the man called out* I'm an Inniskillinger' and then Dumont realised that he was a friend by thegreen he wore in his hat.15 William's men wore the green at the Boyne; theJacobites wore white paper for France.

In spite of these mishaps William got the better of the opposition at Donore.Hamilton was slightly wounded in the head and taken prisoner;16 the Irishcavalry were driven back, which caused a general retreat. A glance at the mapwill show that the whole Oldbridge sector was untenable once the Williamitescontrolled the high ground at Donore church. There was also an immediatethreat to the Jacobite left, which could well be hemmed in between the twoprongs of the Williamite advance.

James's entourage were very nervous about his safety. Lauzun kept up a refrainof * Faster, faster' to the cavalry. When Hoguette represented that this wouldput the infantry in danger, Lauzun replied that nothing was to be thought ofexcept saving King James's person. He ordered Hoguette not to leave the kingand detailed Sarsfield's regiment to act as escort.5

Great confusion was created by the fact that both wings of the Jacobite armymade off in the same direction, heading for the crossing of the Nanny Waterat Duleek. John Stevens, who was with the Grand Prior's regiment comingfrom the Rosnaree side, describes how his men were marching ten abreast betweenhigh banks in Duleek lane when the Irish cavalry from Donore collided withthem. * The horse,' he said, ' came on so unexpected and with such speed thatall supposing them to be the enemy (as indeed they were no better to us) took totheir heels.' The French, also coming from the Rosnaree side, saved the situationfrom complete disaster; Stevens gives the credit for this to Zurlauben, colonelof the Blue Regiment.6 We have Zurlauben's own account, which bears outStevens's story. Zurlauben says that in their retreat from Donore the Irish cutacross the Blue Regiment in a defile and Zurlauben had to fire on them to clearthe position and enable his own men to draw up on the high ground beyondthe crossing.7 That saved the situation for the Jacobites. The Williamite pursuitwas not effectively carried much beyond Duleek. Although the Irish infantryare said to have run like sheep and thrown away their muskets—many of whichwere in fact useless—they lived to fight again and the cavalry and the Frenchregiments made an orderly enough retreat.

From these accounts how are we to judge the handling of the two armies ?To take the Jacobites first, it seems clear that too many troops were moved to theleft away from the key position at Oldbridge to a position in which they took noeffective part in the battle. What is more, this leftward move was made too late


to support O'Neill's dragoons, which of themselves were too small a force tostop the crossing at Rosnaree. Hoguette says the original plan had been to makethe movement to the left at daybreak but that three hours had been wasted beforethe order to march was given; when they did march they could see that some ofthe Williamite force was over the river and driving back the dragoons. In short,the Jacobite move to the left was made too late and resulted in taking too large afraction of the army (including some of the best troops) to an area where no realfighting took place. The remainder of the Jacobite army was too weak to defendOldbridge and the fords below it. Hoguette also criticised the disposition atOldbridge on the ground that only one battalion lined the bank and that theothers were posted too far back.2 The other major mistake was for both wingsof the Jacobites to make for Duleek, which inevitably produced confusion.James justified his decision to take that line of retreat, saying that it was necessaryto pass a brook at Duleek as a bog higher up made it impassable.3 But the mainroad from Slane could have been reached by the Jacobite left without meetingthe Nanny Water.

The Williamites undoubtedly won the day. Their enemies had retreated inconsiderable disorder, leaving behind guns and baggage, even gold watches andsilver dinner/services.16 The Danish envoy remarked that the Williamitescamping at Duleek without tents or baggage kept themselves warm on a chillynight with bonfires of the muskets and pikes that the Irish had thrown away.19

All the same, the Williamite accounts show an uneasy realisation that theirvictory was not as complete as it might have been. The enemy had got awaywith comparatively small losses. The Williamite plan seems originally to havebeen to cut off the Jacobite retreat by a pincers movement. Southwell, writingon the morning of July i, said that the right wing had crossed the river at theupper fords and that the attack at Oldbridge was about to begin ' expecting thatall may soon be disordered on the other side when both parties meet.'23 Similarlythe Dutch envoy said the plan was to cross the river on both wings and hem inthe enemy.16 The pincers movement did not come off because the Williamiteright was immobilised facing the Jacobite left near Rosnaree. It would havebeen more effective to have moved down the road from Slane towards Dublin,and according to James it was beginning a move in that direction when he gavethe order to march for Duleek.

The Danish envoy discussed the question in his letter of July 2. He remarkedthat Count Schomberg had no orders to cut off the enemy retreat and that Williamhimself did not pursue the enemy on his flank as closely as he might have done' perhaps wishing to put into practice Caesar's maxim and leave his enemies agolden bridge' so that they were able to retire.19 The implication seems to bethat William did not wish to cut off James's retreat and saddle himself with anembarrassing prisoner. According to Story Portland was in favour of a morevigorous pursuit, using the technique of mounting a musketeer behind each ofthree thousand cavalry, but his proposal was not accepted.24

William showed reckless bravery and was in the thick of the fighting, wearinghis Star and Garter.23 He had three narrow escapes, the last being from a bulletthat glanced off his boot. The unfortunate James lost all credit as a result of his

Eye-Witnesses of the Boyne 115hasty departure from the battlefield. He headed the retreat to Dublin, where hecomplained bitterly that the Irish had run away. What the Irish thought of himhas been variously expressed. A Williamite bishop is our authority for the sayingattributed to Sarsfield: * as low as we now are, change but kings with us andwe will fight it over again with you.'32

I.—EYE/WITNESSES

A. JACOBITE

1. Berwick, Duke of, Memoirs, i, 63/76.2. Hoguette, Marquis de la, to Louvois, 4/14 July and 31 July/10 Aug.

1690 (Min. guerre, 961, nos. 152, 176).3. James, King, Memoirs in Life by J. S. Clarke, ii. 393/401.4. Lauzun, Count, to Seignelay, 16/26 July 1690 (Ranke, Hist, of England,

vi. 117/24).5. Lery de Girardin, Marquis, to Louvois, 9/19 July 1690 (Min. guerre,

961, no. 178).6. Stevens, Capt. John, Journal, ed. R. H. Murray, p. 121.7. Zurlauben, Col. Conrad, to Louvois, 10/20 July 1690 (Min. guerre,

961, no. 179).

B. WILLIAMITE

8. Bellingham, Col. Thomas, Diary, p. 129.9. Bonnivert, Gideon, 'Journal* in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., viii. 18/21.

10. Brewer, Col. Richard, to Thomas Wharton, [ ] July 1690 (CarteMSS, 79).

11. Clarke, George, Autobiography (H.M.C., Leyborne'Popham MSS,pp. 272/4).

12. Danish journals in Danaher and Simms, Danish force in Ireland,pp. 45/6, 62/3.

13. Davies, Rev. Rowland, Journal, ed. R. Caulfield, pp. 122/5.14. Douglas, Lt./Gen. James, to Duke of Queensberry, 7 July 1690

(M. Napier, iii, 715).15. Dumont de Bostaquet, Memoires inedits, p. 272.16. Hop, Jacob (Dutch envoy), to States General, 2 July 1690 (Europische

Mercurius, July 1690, pp. 64/6).17. Meath, Earl of, to—, 5 July 1690 (R.I.A. Proc, ix, 534/5).18. Parker, Robert, Memoirs of military transactions, pp. 119. Payen de la Fouleresse, Jean (Danish envoy), to Christian V, 2 July 1690

(Notes and queries, 5th series, viii. 21).20. Portland, Earl of, Narrative of the fight at the Boyne (R.I.A., MS

24, G. 1, no. 38).

H6 War and Politics in Ireland, I649-1730

21. Portland, Earl of, to Earl of Melvill, 4 July 1690 {Melvill and Let/en papers,pp. 459'62).

22. St. Felix to Countess Schomberg, 2 July 1690 (Kazner, Leben Friedricbsvon Schomberg, u353'8. 353/8).

23. Southwell, Sir Robert, to Earl of Nottingham, 1 and 2 July 1690(H. M. C., finish , ii 32629, Finch MSS, ii. 326, 329).

24. Story, Rev. George, imoartu bistory, pp. 78 89, Impartial history, pp. 78/89.25. Wiirtemberg, Duke, to Christian V, 1 and 5 July 1690 (Danaher and

Simms, Danish force, pp. 42/3).

II.—OTHER REFERENCES

26. Macaulay, History of England, chap. xvi.27. Hilaire Belloc, James the second (1928), pp. 253/68.28. Sir Charles Petrie,ee,e jac cobite Jacobite movement959 (1959), pp. ni'i8.29. J. T. Gilbert, ed., A Jacobite narrative, pp. 97/105.30. C. O'Kelly, macar9ae Macariae excidium, or the destruction of Cyprused, ed. J. C.

O'Callaghan, pp. 502.31. Schomberg to William III, 14 March and 26 Apr. 1690 (Cal. S. P. dom.,

I689'9O, pp. 509, $66).32. G. Burnet, History of his own time (1823), iv. 140.

MARLBOROUGH'S SIEGE OF CORK, 1690

MARYBOROUGH'S Munster expedition was well planned and wellexecuted. His capture of Cork and Kinsale was a valuable, but somewhat embarrassing, offset to William's own failure at Limerick. When

the project was mooted it appeared to many to be foolhardy. While William andmost of his army were in Ireland, the French had defeated the combined Englishand Dutch fleets offBeachy Head on 30 June 1690, and there was widespreadpanic that England would be invaded. Apart from burning the village ofTeignmouth the French made no landing, but their fleet remained off the Devon/shire coast for five weeks, and did not finally leave Torbay till 4 August.1

Immediately afterwards Marlborough, who was commandepin/chief in Englandduring William's absence, astonished the English government by proposing tolead an expedition of 5,000 troops to the Munster coast. Most of the politicalleaders were strongly opposed to the plan, which meant a serious weakening ofEnglish defences while William was in Ireland and there was still fear of a Frenchinvasion. However, the Earl of Nottingham, Secretary of State, supported theplan, and so did Admiral Russell, who after Beachy Head had become the seniornaval commander. Queen Mary, who was in charge during William's absence,decided that it must be referred to the king. The proposal was conveyed in aletter from Marlborough dated 7 August, which reached William at Limerick on14 August, two days after Ballyneety had damaged his prospects of taking thetown. William had shown little liking for, or trust in, Marlborough. So it isremarkable that he should at once have approved the project. He promised to letMarlborough have cavalry support from the forces in Ireland, but warned himthat no artillery could be spared; he would have to bring his own munitions anduse naval guns.2

Marlborough was now forty, and this was his first independent command.Petticoat influence had helped to make him a colonel at the age of twenty/four,and he had seen some active service with the French army under Turenne. Butmost of his experience had been that of a courtier and diplomatist. In November1688, after William had already landed in England, he was made a lieutenant'general by James, whom he deserted very soon afterwards. William confirmed thepromotion, made him an earl, and sent him in 1689 to Flanders with 8,000English troops to serve under the Prince of Waldeck. He acquitted himself well,but returned to find himself coldly treated by William and Mary, who dislikedthe close relationship that Marlborough and his wife had with the Princess Anne.It was a tribute to William's good sense that he did not allow his personal feelingsto affect his judgment of Marlborough's project.

1 London Gazette, T\\ Aug. 1690.2 William to Marlborough, 14 Aug. 1690, quoted in W. S. Churchill, Marlhorougb, i, 326/7.

9

118 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1 730On 2$ August 1690 (while the siege of Limerick was still in progress) a

warrant was issued to Marlborough to embark eight infantry regiments. Three ofthem—Trelawney's, the Princess of Denmark's and Hastings's (later the 4th, 8thand 13 th regiments of foot)—had fought at the Boyne, and had then been sent backto England because of the French invasion threat. The rest—the Prince ofDenmark's, the regiment of fusiliers, and the regiments of Hales, Collier andFitzpatrick—had served under Marlborough in Flanders in the previous year. Allhad therefore had recent experience of active service. On the same day a warrantwas issued to the admiralty to land 2,000 men of the two marine regiments at suchplaces as the Earl of Marlborough should appoint.3

No time was lost in assembling the expedition, and Marlborough and his menwere on board at Portsmouth on 30 August. Their escort was to be the mainfleet—42 capital ships and 10 fire/ships—together with 17 Dutch ships. But theadmiralty protested that it was unnecessary and unwise to send firstTates andsecond/rates and the main strength of the expedition was third/rates.4 Even so itwas an impressive array amounting, according to one estimate, to '80 ships greatand small'.5 It was under the joint command of three admirals—Haddock,Killigrew and Ashby, their flagship being the 70/gun Kent.6 A notable captainwas the Duke of Grafton, an illegitimate son of Charles II, who had the distinc/tion of being the English sailor to emerge with most credit from the battle ofBeachy Head. He was an old friend of Marlborough, who travelled in his ship,the 70/gun Grafton.7 Adverse winds held up the expedition, and it did not sailtill 17 September.8 By this time William was back in England, and the projectwas less hazardous than it had at first appeared to be.

Just before leaving Ireland William had given instructions to Count Solms,the Dutch general to whom the Irish command was to pass in the first instance:the important task was to support Marlborough and to keep the Jacobites awayfrom Cork and Kinsale.9 Solms held a council of war, which decided that twoof the Danish regiments should be posted on the Blackwater, and that Danish,Dutch and Huguenot cavalry should be at or near Mallow: 'we have not thoughtit right to send a larger army towards Cork or Kinsale, as by doing so we shouldexpose the rest of the country'.10 The Danish infantry battalions were commandedby Major/General Tettau and the cavalry by the Dutch Major^GeneralScravemoer. Marlborough would have preferred English generals and Englishtroops. He sent a 'fly/boat' in advance to Waterford with a letter to Solms askingfor support troops and requesting that Major^Generals Kirk and Lanier should

3 Cal S. P. dom., 16901, p. 106.4 Ibid., p. no; Finch MSS (Hist. MSS comm.), ii, 431; T.C.D., MS K. 5. 2, no. 167. First/

rates, generally speaking, had 100 guns or over, second/rates 80 upwards, but less than 100, third/rates52/80 (W. L. Clowes, The Royal Navy, ii, 114).

5 J. T. Gilbert, A Jacobite narrative, p. 119.6 London Gazette, 22*2$ Sept. 1690.7 Churchill, Marlborough, i, 331.8 London Gazette, 15/18 Sept. 1690.9 Cal. S. P. dom., i6$0'i, p. i n .

10 Ibid., pp. 118/19.

Marlborough 's Siege of Cork, 1690 119

be sent with them. He said he proposed to land either at Crosshaven or at PassageWest. In a postscript he added: 'The sea is so rough and I am so sick that youcan hardly read what I have writ'.11

By this time Solms had left for England and his place had been taken byGinkel, the Dutch general who remained in command of the Williamite forces inIreland for the rest of the war. Ginkel replied that Kirk and Lanier were otherwiseengaged on the Shannon, and that he hoped that Scravemoer had already joinedMarlborough at Cork. He added that the Duke of Wiirtemberg had expressed agreat desire to take part in the operation and that he had agreed to his doing so.12

This raised a complication. Wiirtemberg, who commanded the force hired byWilliam from the king of Denmark, was a lieutenant/general of eight years*standing and could thus claim to rank senior to Marlborough.13 On the otherhand he was a foreigner in charge of an auxiliary force, while Marlborough wasWilliam's subject. The first of the continental troops to reach Cork were 900cavalry and 300 dragoons under Scravemoer and two weak battalions—661 inall—under Tettau. Wiirtemberg brought with him Danish, Dutch and Huguenottroops—2,900 infantry and 390 horse.14

On 21 September the fleet arrived off Crosshaven, at the entrance to Corkharbour, and Marlborough sent an express to Scravemoer and Tettau to join him.The next day the fleet entered the harbour. There was some firing from PrinceRupert's Tower on the east side of the narrow entrance, where the Jacobites had abattery of eight guns. A boat/party went on shore, drove the defenders off, dis'mounted the guns and threw the carriages into the sea. On 23 SeptemberMarlborough's force landed at Passage West, seven miles from Cork on the westside of the harbour.15

It is now time to look at the position from the Jacobite side of the hill. In spiteof the successful defence of Limerick and William's withdrawal, the Frenchmaintained their previous decision to take their troops out of Ireland, andTyrconneil, the Jacobite viceroy, determined to go with them. They sailed fromGal way about 12 September. The Williamites believed that the French hadhastened their departure when they heard that Marlborough was coming.18

Although efforts were made to keep Marlborough's plans secret, they had beendisclosed to the Jacobites. A letter written by Lauzun, the French commander, atsea, mentions that Marlborough was to land at Cork with eight regiments escortedby an English fleet, and that this had been discovered from despatches seized froma Williamite courier.17

11 Marlborough to Solms, 19 Sept. 1690 (T .C .D. , MS K. 5. 2, no. 185).12 Ginkel to Marlborough, 22 Sept. 1690 (ibid., no. 193).13 K. Danaher and J. G. Simms, Danish force in Ireland, i6$0'i, p. 142.14 Ibid., pp. 79/80.15 London Gazette, 2/6 Oct. 1690, the long report in which is the primary source for the siege of Cork.

It is the basis of the account in Story, Impartial history of the affairs ofIreland (1691), pp. 140/3. Of moremodern accounts the fullest is Wolseley, Life offohn Churchill, i, 149/203.

16 Story, Impartial history, p. 136.17 Lauzun to Louvois, 17/27 Sept. 1690 (Paris, Min. guerre arch., vol. 960, no. 177).

120 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730The command of the Jacobite army now passed to the young Duke of Berwick,

the illegitimate son of James. Berwick, of course, had a most distinguished careerlater on and had already shown himself to be a brave soldier. But he was veryyoung for high command, and his task was not made easier by acute dissensionin the Irish army, in which the respective partisans of Tyrconnell and Sarsfieldwere at daggers drawn. A military council was established to advise Berwick, andSarsfield was included in it; but it was said that he had been given the last place,and that only because army opinion would have been offended i( he had beenleft out.18

After raising the siege of Limerick the Williamite army withdrew a considerabledistance from the Shannon. The Jacobites took advantage of this to cross the riverand made an unsuccessful attack on Birr Castle. It would have been wiser to havesecured the line of communication from Limerick to Cork and Kinsale, whichwere the most important harbours still in Irish hands and provided the best com/munication with France. A half/hearted attempt was made to hold Kilmallock,one/third of the distance from Limerick to Cork. But the force was very weak—ioo foot and ioo dragoons under a French lieutenant/colonel, who were over/powered by a detachment from the Danish force. The London Gazette observed:'this [Kilmallock] is a very useful place for that it intercepts the direct passagebetween Cork and Limerick'.19 The main Jacobite army took no action tosupport Cork or to interfere with the Williamite concentration that threatenedCork from the north.

Cork was the second city of Ireland, with a population that before the war hadbeen estimated at 20,000. It had prospered greatly in Charles IFs reign and hadspread outside its walls into suburbs on the high ground north and south of thecity. The old walled city was on an island formed by a division in the Lee, andthe area upstream and downstream was a maze of marshes and tributary channels.The walls were fifty feet high and in parts ten feet thick. They enclosed an oblong(approximately 700 yards long and 250 yards wide) running north and south,with gates at the ends leading to bridges over the north and south channels of theriver.20 Opposite the south/west corner of the wall, on a rock above the southchannel, was the Elizabeth Fort. This had originally been built at the end ofElizabeth's reign by Sir George Carew. The citizens had later demolished it, butit had been rebuilt and equipped with brass ordnance of varying sizes, the largestbeing a 24/pounder. It was, however, overlooked from the high ground to thesouth/east known as the Cat Hill.21 Cork's weakness as a place of defence wasthat it was commanded by hills on either side of the river. Thomas Phillips, themilitary engineer who surveyed it in 1685, reported that it was 'uncapable of beingmade strong by reason that at either end the hills command it to that extent that noperson can move in the streets'.22 According to a Williamite account, published

18 C. O'Kelly, Destruction of Cyprus, ed. J. C. O'Callaghan, p. 72.19 London Gazette, 15/18 Sept. 1690; Danish force, pp. 76^7.20 S. 6 Coindealbhain, 'Thek' in walls of Cork' in corhist jn Cork Hist, and Arch. Soc.Jn., xlviii (194), 61/2.21 There is an excellent account of there is Elizabeth Fori by M. Mulcahy, T. F. MacNamara, and B.

O'Brien in Jr. Sword, iv, 127/34.22 Nat. Lib. Ire., MS 2557.

Cork in 1690 from Story's Impartial History (1691). West is at the top of the map.


shortly before the siege, 'it is fortified with a very good wall and curious stonebridge on which are several works; and being environed with water, were it notfor the hills near i t . . . it might be made a place impregnable, but the hills hassuch a command of it that a battery from thence would beat the town about theears of the garrison'.23

The commander of the garrison was Colonel Roger MacElligott, a Kerrymanwho had had considerable experience of military service on the continent, includeing a period in Holland in command of one of the English regiments supplied toWilliam of Orange. During the English revolution of 1688 he had helped to holdPortsmouth for James, had been interned in the Isle of Wight by William, hadescaped to France and then come with James to Ireland in 1689.24 He had aforce of about 4,500 men—his own regiment and those of Lords Clancarty andTyrone and Colonels MacCarthy, Barrett, O'Sullivan and another whose nameis not recorded.25

Berwick appears to have taken the view that Cork was indefensible and to haveordered MacElligott to burn the city and withdraw to the west. MacElligottdisregarded the instructions and tried to hold Cork.26 The key to the defence onthe south side was Cat Hill. This had been selected by Phillips in 1685 as the bestsite for a secure armoury and storehouse. MacElligott began the construction ofan outpost there and stationed a detachment of dragoons in it. On the north sidehe constructed new works a little below Shandon Castle.27

On 24 September, the day after they had disembarked at Passage West,Marlborough's men marched towards Cork. Colonel Hale's regiment led thevanguard and drew up before the outpost on Cat Hill. There was an exchange offire with the Irish dragoons in the outpost, but no significant opposition wasencountered. As Ensign Cramond put it: 'we had some popping from thehedges, but without loss'.28 Marlborough's heavy guns were brought along withthe help of marines and naval ratings. They were mounted on Cat Hill in readi/ness for a bombardment of the city. The main force camped that night about amile and a half to the rear. On the morning of 25 September it was discoveredthat the Irish had abandoned the Cat post and withdrawn to the Elizabeth Fort.The discovery is said to have been made by two seamen who promptly took pos/session of the post.29 Marlborough's men then advanced 'within musket shot ofthe town'. The same day Scravemoer and Tettau reached the hills on the northside. Tettau mounted guns on Fair Hill to the north of the city preparatory to anattack on the Irish works near Shandon Castle. But the Irish withdrew on this

23 An account ojtbe... cities and garrisons in Ireland that are still possessed by the forces of the late KingJames (1690), p. 6.

24 J. L. Garland, 'The regiment of MacElligott, 1688/89' in Ir. Sword, i, 121/7; R. Hayes, Biographicaldictionary of Irishmen in France, p . 178.

25 C. Smith, Ancient and present state of Cork, ii, 205.26 J. S. Clarke, Life of James II, ii, 419.27 'Diary of Ensign Cramond', quoted in Cork Hist, and Arch. Soc.Jn., iii (1894),2<s I Danish force,

p. 83.28 Cork Hist, and Arch. Soc.Jn., ui, 26.29 Smith, Ancient and present state of Cork, ii, 203.


side also. A Danish officer referred to the abandoned works as 'a redoubt whichstood upon a hill so near the town that one could shoot with muskets into thestreet; outside it stood a large tower where [the enemy] had mounted guns; therewas also a ravelin with a good communication trench and there were batteries forguns made in the ravelin*. He observed that the post was so well stocked that theWilliamite advance might have been held up for a long time. These seem to bethe works referred to by Story, the English chaplain and historian, as 'the new forts'and 'new Shandon Castle'.30 Besides abandoning their outposts the Irish burnedthe suburbs on either side of the river. The Williamites were highly critical ofMacElligott's action in burning the suburbs, particularly as he had promised, fora consideration of £500 in silver, not to do so.31 There was an exchange ofcorrespondence between MacEUigott and Scravemoer, whom he seems to haveknown in Holland. Scravemoer had evidently urged MacElligott not to resistthe overwhelming forces brought against him and not to burn the town.MacElligott gave a pugnacious reply, accompanied by ajar of wine, in which hesaid he was not afraid of Scravemoer's cavalry nor of the infantry that had landed,and was resolved to receive all comers; whether he burned Cork or not woulddepend on what he thought best for his master's service.32

By the evening of 25 September the two prongs of the Williamite advance had,after negligible opposition, got possession of the heights on both sides of the river.That day also ships from Waterford came in with stores and provisions thatMarlborough had sent there in advance. Marlborough had also asked the officersat Waterford to ship woolpacks, sandbags, pickaxes, shovels and a quantity ofthree/inch plank. Eight heavy guns were also put on board at Waterford 'toattend my lord Marlborough's commands'.33 Boats full of armed men were sentup the river to assist in attacking the city from the marshy ground to the east. Fineweather aided these movements.

On 26 September the English troops moved forward through the ruins of thesouthern suburbs and there was some bombardment of the Elizabeth Fort.Similar bombardment took place from the neighbourhood of Shandon Castle onthe north side. That day Scravemoer brought over his Dutch and Danish cavalryto the south side of the river and stationed them at Gill Abbey, south/west of thecity. Wurtemberg arrived that day, which raised awkward questions of precedeence as he claimed the right of command. The problem was settled amicably by anagreement that he and Marlborough should command on alternate days.Marlborough, whose turn came first, made the password of the day 'Wiirtemberg',and Wurtemberg returned the compliment the next day. But the difficulty ofdivided command was not wholly removed.

The Williamites had a useful helper in Rowland Davies, Dean of Ross, whohad a house near Gill Abbey. Davies's journal is a good first/hand account of thesiege and shows that he played an active part in helping the Williamite forces. He

30 Danish force, p. 83; Story, Impartial history, p. 141.31 Smith, Cork, ii, 203.32 MacElligott to Scravemoer, 23 Sept. 1690 (R. I. Acad., MS 12.1 . 12, p . 46).33 T .C.D. , MS K. 5. 2, nos. 187,190.

124 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730says that on the morning of 27 September he told Scravemoer that good use couldbe made of the tower of St. Finbar's Cathedral: 'if boards were laid on the beamsthereof, our men might gall the enemy in the [Elizabeth] fort*. LieutenantHoratio Townsend was sent up with two files of men, succeeded in killing thecommander of the fort and 'did other considerable execution*. The Irish firedback at the tower and 'shook it exceedingly'. Townsend fortified the resolutionof his men by having the ladder taken away, and remained aloft till the ElizabethFort was surrendered.34

That day—27 September—there was heavy bombardment. A battery at theCat post, consisting of two 24-pounders and three 18-pounders, fired at theElizabeth Fort. Mortars threw bombs into the city. Heavy cannon were landedthat morning 'near the Red Cow by Red Abbey' to the south-east of the city.They included some 36-pounders, which must have been among the heavy gunsput on board at Waterford. A battery was set up near Red Abbey, which bom-barded the eastern sector of the wall' and soon made it tumble'.35 The bombard-ment had the effect of making MacElligott begin negotiations. He began bymaking a gesture. The Protestant bishop—Edward Wetenhall—who had beenheld prisoner was let out with all his clergy and 1,300 of his congregation andallowed to come into the Williamite camp. MacElligott also wrote again toScravemoer saying that his own resolution to defend the city to the last wasunshaken; however, under pressure from others he proposed that two Williamitesshould come into Cork and two Jacobites should go out to the Williamite campto discuss terms for a settlement, and that in the meantime there should be a cease-fire.86 Scravemoer replied that 'this matter did not belong to me, but to my lordMarlborough, who commanded*. MacElligott accordingly wrote to Marlborough'excusing himself that he did not know it was his lordship that commanded*.Marlborough answered that the only terms he was prepared to give were to makethe garrison prisoners of war. Meanwhile, however, MacElligott had also writtento Wiirtemberg, who was on the north side of the city. The latter replied that ifthe garrison would lay down their arms they would be permitted to march away.Fortunately for the relations between Marlborough and Wiirtemberg, MacElligottdid not accept the less rigorous of the two offers. In Scravemoer's words: 'the

devil of a governor did that which I before apprehended and kept our hostages till

the tide came in, and afterwards sent word that he could not accept of such acapitulation, and so made a jest of us'.37

The next morning—28 September—the bombardment was resumed and abreach made in the eastern wall, about sixty yards from the south-east angle.About 1 p.m., when the tide was nearly at the ebb, a simultaneous attack throughthe east marsh was made from both sides: the English under Marlborough'sbrother, Brigadier Charles Churchill, from the south, and continental troops—

34 R. Davies, Journal, ed. R. Caulfield, pp. 152-3.35 Ibid., pp. 153-4.36 MacElligott to Scravemoer, 27 Sept. 1690 (R.I.A., MS 12.1. 12, p. 24).37 Scravemoer to George Clarke, 29 Sept. 1690 (T.C.D., MS K. 5. 2, no. 203).

devilgovernor did that which i befotre and dipt our hostages till of a goveerdid nit accept the lisss rigoruous of the tow of fers. I N SCRAV MORE TJETJE

THE TIDDE CAME AND AFTERWADS SENT WORD THJAT HE COULD NOT SUCAPITULATION, AND SO MADE A JEST OF US

DIDNOT ACCEPT HE LESS RIGOUSOF THEH TOFFERS WORDS WORDS THE


Danes, Dutch and Brandenburgers—under Wiirtemberg from the north.38 Thiswas difficult going. The east marsh was bisected by a stream where PatrickStreet now is, and both parts were separated from the wall by what was describedas a moat twenty feet wide at the narrowest point, now covered by Grand Parade.The English force went up to their armpits as they crossed the south channel onto the marsh. The van was led by the Grenadiers, who moved forward in theface of heavy fire to the extreme edge of the marsh to within twenty yards of thewall under cover of a house that had escaped destruction. Particular note wastaken of the bravery of the Duke of Grafton who was mortally wounded *in thepoint of his shoulder' in this operation.39 A few days later he died, much lamentedby Williamites; his fate was mourned in a broadside entitled 'England's tributeof tears on the death of His Grace the Duke of Grafton'.40 The name Grafton'sAlley was later given to the street near the spot where he was wounded. Anothervolunteer who distinguished himself in this action was Lord O'Brien, who laterbecame the third Earl of Inchiquin. On the Danish sector Colonel Munchgaarof Prince Frederick's regiment drove the Jacobite outposts across the marsh to *alittle gate and bridge that joined the island to the town; 20 or 30 of them had tojump into the moat, apart from those left dead on the bridge'. The Irish fromwithin the city reacted strongly: 'they crowded on the walls and did their best withtheir muskets so that I [Munchgaar] quickly got my men under cover and wardedoff a large body that tried to make a sortie'.41 To support the land troops theSalamander, which is described as a bomb/ketch, and another vessel had come the channel by the morning tide. They bombarded the breach and threw bombsinto the city.

This combined assault was too much for MacElligott. He beat a chamade andsent out the Earl of Tyrone and another officer to ask for terms. He was told thatthe garrison would be made prisoners of war, but that they would be treated withconsideration. Among the terms, which were accepted by MacElligott, were thefollowing: that the garrison should be treated as prisoners of war, and that thereshould be 'no prejudice done to the officers, soldiers or inhabitants'; and thatMarlborough would try to obtain clemency for them from William.42 There wasto be much complaint that the treatment given to the garrison and the citizens wasvery different from that promised in the capitulation.

That night—28 September—the Elizabeth Fort was surrendered and occupiedby 200 of Marlborough's men. The fort had been used as a prison forProtestants, who were now set at liberty. On the morning of 29 September theWilliamites entered the city, but in no very orderly fashion:

Many seamen and other loose persons entered the city through the breachand other places and plundered many houses, especially of papists. As soonas the bridges could be mended, the Earl of Marlborough and Major/General

38 Danish force, p. 152.39 Davies, Journal, p. 156.40 Nat. Lib. Ire., Thorpe pamphlets, vol. xii.41 Danish force, p . 83.42 London Gazette, 2<6 Oct. 1690.

INTO YHR VI


Scravemoer entered and took much pains to preserve the city from furtherdamage . . . In the afternoon all papists were ordered by proclamation onpain of death to repair to the East Marsh, where all that had been under armswere secured and after put under guard, the officers in the County CourtHouse and the rest in the churches and other places.43

Scravemoer estimated the number of prisoners at nearly 5,000; he put the William/ite losses at no more than 50. The primary reason for the surrender seemed to beshortage of ammunition: 'we found no more than two small barrels of powder,an hundred of ball at the most, and a good deal of match*.44

A number of officers, including MacElligott and the Earls of Clancarty andTyrone, were put on board the ships which returned to England. MacElligottwas confined in the Tower of London till the war with France came to an end in1697, when he was released and entered the French service. Clancarty was thechief Williamite prize. His enormous estate—135,000 acres—was confiscated.He himself was lodged in the Tower, escaped to France, and after sundry adventtures spent his declining years on an island in the Elbe. The Earl of Tyrone diedvery soon after being put in the Tower. Some other officers came to an untimelyend when they were put on board the Breda, which blew up in Cork Harbour.

The fate of lesser prisoners was deplorable. According to Charles Leslie ofGlaslough, the garrison were marched to a 'marshy wet ground*, where they wereforced through hunger to eat dead horses; they were afterwards crowded intogaols, houses and churches under such insanitary conditions that they died inlarge numbers.45 The Williamite governor of Cork, Colonel Hales, describedthe city as 'crowded with the sick and prisoners, but especially the latter, who diedso fast with a kind of pestilence that unless the garrison were thinned of them it wasin danger of receiving the infection'.46 Shortage of supplies and mismanagementseem to have been the main factors in the situation rather than deliberate ill'treatment.

Marlborough had achieved a notable success, gained by efficient planning andvigorous execution. He was greatly aided by the active co/operation of the navy,both in the transport of men, guns and stores, and in the amphibious attack onthe walls. He also received effective support from the continental troops underWiirtemberg, who took just as active a part in the final assault as Marlborough'sown men.

MacElligott came under criticism from his own side for his failure to withdrawfrom Cork and for his ill/judged refusal to accept the comparatively favourableterms offered to him by Wiirtemberg. The Marquis d'Albeville (IgnatiusWhite) wrote to James in a letter intercepted by the Williamites:

Cork was taken by the enemy after six days' siege for want of ammunition,and the garrison made prisoners of war by the ill conduct of the governor.The Earl of Clancarty advised the burning of the town and to make their

43 Da vies, Journal, p. 156.44 T.C.D., MS K. 5. 2, no. 203.45 C. Leslie, Answer to a book intituled, The State of the Protestants, p. 162.46 T.C.D., MS K. 5. 3. no. 277.


way through the weakest body of the enemy, as all were willing to do . . . butthat the governor assured them of obtaining good conditions. On the fiftday of the siege they might have had good conditions and refused them; onthe sixth the governor was so silly as to send the bishop and the Protestantdean to go out and capitulate, who assured the enemy they had no powderleft.47

The court memoirs that form the Life of James 11 observed that the governor,though in no condition to hold Cork to the last, 'did it however till he could haveno condition at all, and being forced to surrender upon discretion found littlecompassion at the enemy's hands'.48 Cork was the first town taken by theWilliamites in which the garrison were made prisoners. At Drogheda andWaterford the garrison had been allowed to march away.

The defence of Cork had gained a little time for the Jacobites—six autumn days,but it was at a heavy price in prisoners of war. They would probably have donebetter to abandon Cork and concentrate on the defence of Kinsale, where therewas a modern fort and ample store of ammunition, but inadequate manpower.With the forces available to him MacElligott had not the means of holding thehigh ground on both sides of the river and thus was in an impossibly weak position.The failure of the main Jacobite army to tackle Wiirtemberg's force was anadditional factor in the loss of Cork. If the French had remained and had takenactive measures to relieve the city the story might have been different. TheWilliamites profited by Jacobite mistakes, but could fairly claim to have earnedtheir victory. The prize was the second city in Ireland, a good harbour and a busytrading centre. It cut the Jacobites off from an important link with France andpaved the way for the capture of Kinsale—'one of the best and securest harboursin the world'49—which from a naval point of view was an even greater prize.Marlborough had greatly improved William's prospects in Ireland. Williamacknowledged his services in somewhat ambiguous language: 'No officer living,who has seen so little service as my lord Marlborough, is so fit for great com/mands'. He did not give Marlborough the opportunity of completing theconquest of Ireland in 1691.

47 Finch MSS, ii, 470.48 Clarke, Life of James II, ii, 419.49 Story, Continuation of the impartial history, p. 45.

10

A JACOBITE COLONEL:

LORD SARSFIELD OF KILMALLOCK

THE correspondence and papers1 of Dominick, fourth Viscount Sarsfieldof Kilmallock are a valuable source of information on the Irish armyof 1689/91. Lord Kilmallock, as he was commonly called, was an

experienced soldier. As a young man he had enlisted under a false name inthe French army and had before long been made a sergeant, a rank which heheld for several years.2 In 1689 he returned to Ireland, married PatrickSarsfield's sister and was made Colonel of a regiment of foot. He took hisresponsibilities seriously, and earned the reputation of being a conscientiousofficer who devoted himself to the interests of his regiment.3

A letter which Kilmallock wrote to his wife on 26 July, 1689 touches onsome of the problems with which he was faced on taking up his command.He wanted his regiment to be moved up from the country to Rathcoole in theneighbourhood of Dublin, so that he could get its supply of arms "with lessdanger of being spoiled". His wife was to speak to Lord Melfort about thisand also about money for uniforms. She was to get one of the Ensigns to procurered and blue velvet for the grenadier Captain's cape (sic) and blue and redbroadcloth for two Lieutenants. He asked her to send to the tailor in ThomasStreet for his own red coat. The officers* uniforms were ready by the beginningof September, when the regiment began its march north to meet Schombergnear Dundalk. Money, however, was not readily forthcoming. Eventuallythe tailors sent a petition to the King, complaining that they had not been paidfor officers' coats, breeches, trimmings and other materials supplied to LordKilmallock's regiment; they demanded that the money should be stoppedout of his Lordship's pay.

There are many references in the correspondence of the next few months tothe question of providing uniforms for the men. One of the company com/manders, Walter Gal way, was posted to Dublin to act as agent for this purpose;his letters to Kilmallock give a detailed account of the difficulties he experienced.The ordinary practice was for the Colonel to provide the uniforms and torecoup himself from part of the pay due to the regiment. This method left con/siderable latitude to the Colonel in the choice of uniform, and Kilmallockpaid close attention to the problem. He sent up patterns of cloth which were to

1 These are partly in Trinity College, Dublin and partly in the possession of Col. T. Sarsfieldof Mallow, who has lent his MSS to the National Library of Ireland. My thanks arc due to TrinityCollege and to Col. Sarsfield for permission to quote from the MSS in their possession.

2 Negotiations d? M. le Comte d'Avaux, p. 536.3 Ibid.


be shown to the Duke of Tyrconnell for approval; a convenient opportunityfor this was expected to occur on the day that his grace was to dine withMajor/General Sarsfield. An estimate for clothing the regiment, which is amongthe papers, shows the equipment that was considered necessary and the priceof individual items. The sanctioned strength of the regiment was thirteencompanies, each consisting of two sergeants, three corporals, sixty/two privatesand a drummer. The estimate for clothing amounted to £1,188 10s. nd.Each private was to get a blue coat with red badges at Ss. id., red breeches at is.,a pair of buckled shoes at is. iod., a pair of red stockings at is., a haversack anda pair of gloves at is., two shirts at is. 6d. each, and two cravats at 6d. each.A sergeant was to have a red coat, which with the breeches would cost £1.A drummer was to have a blue embroidered coat, breeches and an embroideredcap, the whole outfit costing £1 $s.

Unfortunately for Kilmallock's plans, King James was determined to cutdown the cost of uniforms. Instead of the Colonels providing clothing fortheir regiments, a cheaper and less colourful uniform was to be issued fromthe commissariat stores. Captain Galway wrote: " I do not find that any colonelof the kingdom will have liberty to provide for his regiment; they must takewhat necessaries they have out of the stores in this place, and that pursuant toa resolution taken for the furnishing of the whole army". Eventually the storesin Dublin issued 862 sets of clothing for the regiment, each consisting of asurtout (close/fitting overcoat) "of very good frieze", a waistcoat, breeches,stockings and brogues, and a single shirt. Sergeants had to make do with thesame coats as privates.4 The uniforms were sent down from Dublin to Corkin charge of an Ensign with an escort of thirty men who had fallen sick in theautumn campaign against Schomberg and had since recovered. Captain Galwayissued these men with breeches, waistcoats, stockings and brogues "the betterto enable them to travel". A number of other men who had been sick had goneoff to their homes as soon as they had recovered, not even asking for back pay.The regiment was therefore considerably below strength. Galway wrote toKilmallock that there was much talk in Dublin about the weakness of theregiment; he had assured Sir Richard Nagle that the regiment would soonbe brought up to strength. He had also sent an Ensign to visit the Droghedahospital, but there were only nine men still there.

An acrimonious dispute arose over the question of Captain Galway's expenses.He had arranged with each company commander to pay him £$ out of thebread money to recompense him for his trouble and expense in acting as theregimental agent in Dublin. Complaints were made to the treasury com/missioners that the men were not receiving the proper amount of bread money;from the nominal allowance of seventeen deniers6 the French almoner deductedeight, and a further deduction was then made for Captain Galway's expenses.

4 The Williamitc army also abandoned the system under which Colonels provided uniforms;instead, the commissariat issued close-bodied coats of grey frieze. (C. Walton, History of the Britishstanding army, 1660'ijoo, p. 390).

5 A denier was a small copper coin, worth about two^thirds of a farthing.

Lord Sarsfield of Kilmallock 131

The latter was highly indignant that this should have led to reflections beingcast on himself and on Kilmallock: " I answered that you did no more thanall other regiments of the kingdom and that when you found the abuse of theFrench almoner you immediately petitioned their ooard about the abuse anddesired satisfaction and that your petition was the first given in, which gavesatisfaction as to that part; the next was that your lordship and I combinedto make all the captains pay £5 each out of the bread money tor our own privateuse, so that there was eight deniers a ration stopped by the French almoner and£$ by me, which was two/thirds of the value of the bread; to which I answeredthat the regiment of their own consent allowed me £5 for the pains and troubleI took about their business for six months past, that your lordship was no wayconcerned in it, more than to think that I deserved that sum and to pay yourproportion, and that I was resolved hereafter never to be concerned for a peoplewho proved so ungrateful, and I demonstrated plainly that I deserved doublethat sum.*' It turned out that the complaints had come from one of the companycommanders, Captain James Butler, who had told the story to his brother,Sir Toby, the Solicitor/general. The latter wrote a stiff letter to Kilmallock,pointing out that the King had expressly forbidden any deductions from theregimental bread money.

For most of the winter of 1689/90 the regiment was in Cork or Limerick.In April, 1690 it was directed to march from Limerick to Dublin. The originalorder, which bears the signatures of James II and of Sir Richard Nagle, Secretaryfor War, is among the papers. It is of interest as a specimen of a seventeenth/century movement order. The King*s signature—James R—comes at the top,followed by the text of the order:

Our Will and pleasure is that you forthwith march with the Regim* of ffooteunder your Comand from theire present Quarters to our Citty of Dublin bythe Roote in the anexed list mentioned where they are to remaine and quartertill further order You are to Cause that in theire march and Quarters goodorder and discipline be observed both by the Officers & Soldiers and that theyduely pay for what provision and other necessaries they make use off Andherein you are not to fayle Given at our Court at Dublin Castle the 25th dayof Aprill 1690 And in the sixth yeare of our Reigne

By his Maties ComdRi Nagle

To Our Rt Trusty & Wellbelovedthe Lord Vise* KilmalockeComanding a Regimt of fbote in ourService or to the officer in CheifeComanding the same

The order came at an awkward time, as most of the officers had gone outrecruiting. The regiment was much below strength; only four companies wereat full strength, and Captain Galway thought that unless the rest were substantiallyreinforced by fresh recruits the regiment would be unfit for active service. A


letter from Kilmallock's brother also refers to recruiting difficulties. He hadmanaged by making great promises to secure "three lusty fellows" who wereon their way to Dublin. He also had a plan to write to several parish priestsand ask them to announce to their congregations that there was an order forpressing young men into the French regiments to replace casualties; it wouldbe advisable for such young men to enlist voluntarily in Irish regiments, wherethey would receive kind treatment, instead of being compulsorily pressed intoFrench regiments, where they would not be understood and would receivebad treatment. Kilmallock himself took a hand at recruiting; an item in abill relates to five shillings paid to his lordship in the field at Rathcoole to"make O'Donnell's recruit drink".

The regiment was short of arms, and an issue of French muskets was madeto bring its equipment up to strength. The quality of the muskets was not verysatisfactory, as appears from the following certificate granted by the storekeeper:

By L* James McNamee Storekeepr of his Maties Magazine of Warr inLimerick

I doe hereby Certifie that the Carrieres of Cork brought from Corke theNumber of foure hundred ninty and nine french Muskets w(h Matchlocks,besydes one lost by the s<* Cariers on the way:of which number of 499: there are two Muskets broaken in the midle of thebarrels unfitt to be made use off: and the rest of the s Musketts being 497:I have redelivered to the Right honablc the IA Kilmalock Regiam* of ffoottin the same Condittion as I reed, that is to say the most pte of them unfixed;some wanting trickers, Cocks, Scrowe pines, Ramers, and some of theirestocks broaken: as witnesse my hand this 22 May 1690

Wittness Ja MacnameeJ. Pendergast

In view of the poor condition of its weapons, the regiment was perhapsfortunate in being stationed in Dublin during the battle of the Boyne. Afterthe battle it retreated towards Limerick with the rest of the Irish army.6 Kilmallockhimself played a distinguished part in the first siege of Limerick, defending thebreach against Wurtemburg's forces with such vigour that they were repelledwith heavy losses.7

There is a gap of several months in Kilmallock's correspondence, coveringthe latter part of 1690 and the beginning of 1691. In the spring there was areorganisation of the Jacobite forces. Kilmallock from being Colonel of aninfantry regiment now became Colonel of a cavalry regiment. There are anumber of letters and papers about the equipping of this regiment, whichconsisted of a nucleus of Patrick Sarsfield's old regiment with the addition of

6 John Stevens, Journal, p. 131.7 J. T. Gilbert, A Jacobite Narrative, p. 262.

Lord Sarsfield of Kilmallock 13 3

three new troops. Patrick Sarsfield, now Lord Lucan, was appointedmarechal de camp.*

One of the papers is headed "A list of arms and accoutrements wanting inColonel Sarsfield's regiment". A full complement of saddles, bits, stirrups,holsters, swords, buff sword-belts, carbines, pistols etc. was required for thethree new troops; a proportion of the same equipment was needed to makeup deficiencies for the nine old troops. Two hundred yards of blue cloth wasrequired to make hose, caps and carbine belts for the new troops and fordeficiencies in the equipment of the old troops. The whole regiment neededhats, shoes and stockings, shirts, cravats, gloves and haversacks. The statementcontains the following note: "We have cloth in Galway to make coats andcloaks for the new troops and to make some for the old regiment. If there beanything come over for breeches and waistcoats you must get us as much aswill make 200 of each*'.

In a letter written from Limerick on 20 May, 1691 John Gaydon, theMajor,9 wished Kilmallock "all imaginable joy" of his new regiment andcomplained of the slavery and difficulty he was having in obtaining equipmentfor it. He wrote: " Though I had several disputes with M. de St Rue yet Ihave not gained my point. There has been but little consideration had of ournew troops, for I could not get one firearm for them but I got a hundred swordsfor them . . . You would do well to put in for fifty case of pistols and carbinesto arm at least the front of the new troops". On the back of the letter he gavelists of the equipment he had received:

What monsr de St Rue gave me130 saddles with all furnyture except Holsters130 bitts50 carybines50 case of pistols and Holsters

120 Tents100 syetts which the french gaurd magasin will deliver150 swords50 carbyne belts

What I got from my Lord Lt600 shurts for 12 Troopes150 hatts for new Troopes600 weight of forage cords600 yards of Canvass for walletts and Haversacks

shurts for officers250 cloaks

all that are to desire is more fire armes more saddles more bits

8 Archives rationales, Min. de la guerre, A.I . , mlxvi, 204.

9 Gaydon later had a distinguished career in France: see R. Hayes, Biographical Dictionary ofIrishmen in France, p . 102.


The major reported that the coats for the new troops were being made byAlderman Peppard, who had promised to have them ready in five days, butwould need to be kept up to the mark.

In default of new issues strenuous efforts were made to repair damagedweapons and to improvise belts and buckles. This work was centred at Tuamunder Captain Cornelius Martin, who wrote several letters about his difficulties.Blacksmiths had arrived, but there was no coal for their forges. The tailorshad not got the proper leather for carbine belts and spur leathers. The curriedleather that had been sent was too weak. Captain Martin seems to have beensomething of a character. He clearly prided himself on the condition in whichhe had kept Kilmallock's three horses—a stone horse, a black gelding and abay mare. "Believe me", he wrote, "they are three fitting for the best monarchin Christendom, provided they are kindly used and not to be ridden as youdid at Carnendaragone; beware of that sort of riding, for it is not always youmay have one by you that may prevent what hurt you may do the horse in sobloody a heat. For God's sake abuse not the horses in what attitude soeveryou happen to be".

Kilmallock had some difficulty in obtaining his own requirements. Hiswife was in Galway and was commissioned to send him camp equipment,which seems to have been a troublesome task, as things in Galway were inconfusion and the Kilmallocks were short of money. However, she managedto send him a tent, six chairs and stools, five pewter dishes, a dozen plates, afrying pan and a pot with a cover, which was to serve both as stewing pan andas saucepan. One of his officers searched Limerick in vain for cheese; it hadall been bought by the army and sent off to the camp. Loaf sugar was notavailable either, but the officer managed to send Kilmallock six pounds of thebest white sugar to be had, a pound of pepper and some ginger; he also senta sumpter saddle which cost £3.

The regiment took no part in the siege of Athlone. At Aughrim it wasstationed on the left wing near the causeway where the Williamite forces brokethrough. Kilmallock himself was reported to have been killed, but the reportwas false.10 After the battle he withdrew to Limerick for the final siege, duringwhich the cavalry were stationed in County Clare and did not take a prominentpart in the military operations. When the treaty was signed Kilmallock andhis wife elected to go to France. On his first arrival he was appointed byKing James to be First Lieutenant of one of the troops of Guards. Later on hebecame Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Dragoons. He was killed at thebattle of Chiari in 1701, fighting at the head of his regiment.

10 J. T . Gilbert, A Jacobite Narrative, p. 138; G. W . Story, A Continuation of the ImpartialHistory, p. 138.

11

COUNTY DONEGAL IN THE JACOBITE WAR, 1689-91

HE JACOBITE WAR is known in Irish as the Cogadh anda ri, the war of the two kings—Ri Seamus and Ri

Liam. Ri Liam never came to Donegal, but Ri Seamus did.His coming led to a number of incidents in the county duringthe early part of the war, in connection with the siege ofDerry and the operations round Enniskillen. In the laterstages of the war, south Donegal was a base for the William-ite attack on Sligo.

The war was an important affair : important for Eng-land, as it decided who was to be king, and the only time therivals met in battle was in Ireland at the Boyne; importantfor Europe, as it was part of a major struggle betweenFrance and the rest. James was a satellite of France, andWilliam was the key figure in a grand alliance that contain-ed great Catholic powers—the Holy Roman Emperor andthe king of Spain—and was formed with the good will of thePope. But from the Irish point of view the contest wasprimarily one of Catholic versus Protestant. The olddivision between Gael and Gall was no longer as importantas the religious division. Oliver Cromwell had seen tothat: the 'old English' colonists who were Catholics werejust as much his victims as the Gaels: they were all Irishpapists', and their lands were taken away and given to thenew Protestant settlers. But in Donegal the division wasbetween Gael and Gall as well as between Catholic andProtestant; those who had lost their lands in the countywere all Gaels.

A new era seemed to have arrived in 1685 with theaccession of King James, because he was himself a Catholicand his coming to the throne seemed to give the Irish Cath-olics the best chance they could ever have of getting backtheir lands and seeing their Church restored to its old pos-

T


ition. James did something for them. He appointed aCatholic viceroy, Richard Talbot, and gave him the earldomof Tyrconnell, though his family was no nearer to Donegalthan Malahide and his title was not at all to the liking ofthe O'Donnells. Talbot made a new Catholic army whichincluded some Gaelic regiments, though most of the colon-els were 'old English', like himself. Catholics becamejudges and civil servants, and the Catholic Church came outof hiding. But James was king of England and knew Eng-lish opinion, which was anti-Irish and anti-Catholic. Hebalked at giving back lands, and he balked at putting outthe Protestant Church of Ireland and making the CatholicChurch the official one. By stopping half-way he pleasedneither country. Catholics thought he did not go farenough; Protestants thought he went too far. For Protes-tants the last straw came in 1688 when James had a sonand it looked as if there would be a Catholic dynasty. Therewas a revolution in England: William was invited over fromHolland, James ran away to France, and the French kingsent him to Ireland with French officers, arms and money,so that he could recover his English throne with the help ofthe Catholic Irish who formed Tyrconnell's army.

James reached Ireland in March 1689 and was welcomedby the Catholics, who expected him to give them back theirlost lands and put the Catholic Church in its proper place.For the same reasons he was not welcomed by Protestants,particularly those of Ulster, which was then as now themost Protestant of the four provinces. The colonists ofthe north had armed themselves to resist James and supportWilliam: they were the Ulster volunteers of those days.Their strongest position was Derry, which had been builtseventy years before by the London companies and giventhe walls and guns that are still there. It had been built asa city of refuge for the colony. In the Ulster rising of 1641it sheltered many of the colonists, and it was to be a refugeagain in 1689, though the refugees had a bad time.

Donegal was part of James I's Ulster plantation. Thelands of O'Donnell and O'Doherty and their vassals weretaken and planted with English and Scots colonists. JamesI left a few lands round Kilmacrenan to some of the Mac-Swynes and other Gaelic families, but the little he left wastaken by Cromwell, and when James II came to Ireland nota foot of the county was owned by Gaels. But there wereplenty of them living there. The hills and the boglandswere full of them, and taking the county as a whole theyoutnumbered the Protestant colonists. Only in the baronyof Raphoe—the Laggan land between the Foyle and Finn

County Donegal in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 137

old inhabitants.1 Most of the Lagganeers were Scots —hard-working Presbyterians who had developed the landand were determined to hold on to it.

The Gaels were just as determined to get it back, andthe war seemed to give them their opportunity. Apart fromthe Laggan there were considerable numbers of Protestantsalong the shores of Donegal Bay from Killybegs to Bally-shannon, and along the shores of Lough Swilly. They werethe tenants on the good land; the Catholics were the tenantsof the great landlords for the poor hilly land of the interiorand of the west coast. During the war both sides raisedarmies. Conyngham's dragoons fought for William;O'Donnells raised regiments of their former vassals andfought for James, at any rate for most of the time.

The resistance of the Ulster Protestants had begun inDerry at the end of 1688, when thirteen apprentice boysclosed Ferryquay Gate against Lord Antrim's regiment ofCatholic Gaels. But many Protestants were not as hot-headed as the apprentice boys and were not prepared to beopen rebels against King James. There was a compromisewith Lord Tyrconnell and one of his few Protestant regi-ments was sent back to garrison Derry. This was theregiment of William Stewart of Ramelton, Viscount Mount-joy. Its lieutenant-colonel who took command in Derry wasa Scottish Protestant, Robert Lundy. He was a professionalsoldier and his inclination was to serve the rightful king,who was James II. But there was strong pressure for therevolution among the Derry Protestants. A delegate wassent to William, who promised to help the Protestant causeand sent one of the Hamilton family—the Abercorns, whohad been given much land round Strabane in the Ulsterplantation. In the war there were Hamiltons on both sides.The main branch had become Catholic, and the Lord Aber-corn of the time was on James's side. But Captain JamesHamilton, whom William sent to Derry, was a Protestant.He brought arms and ammunition and William's commissionfor Lundy. Soon after James reached Ireland William andMary were proclaimed in Derry and the reluctant Lundydeclared himself to be on their side.

From James's point of view there was open rebellion inthe north. To suppress it Captain James Hamilton'sCatholic uncle Richard was sent by Tyrconnell with a smallarmy. Richard was an experienced soldier who had servedin France and was now a lieutenant-general. He began byrouting the Protestant volunteers of Down in an engage-ment called the break of Dromore. He then marched on,

valley and Letterkenny did the colonists outnumber the


clearing all before him, through Coleraine and down thecounty Derry side of Lough Foyle. The Protestants put upvery little resistance in the open country. They either laiddown their arms and accepted King James or they made forDerry, which was now crowded with 30,000 inside the wall-ed city. There was no bridge at Derry, so Hamilton march-ed along the Tyrone side of the Foyle to Strabane, where hemet a second Jacobite force, which consisted of Irish troopsunder the command of French generals.

Meanwhile the Protestants prepared to hold the Don-egal side of the river. Lundy held a council of war, whichpassed the following resolution: 'all officers and soldiersand all other armed men that can and will fight for theircountry and religion against popery shall appear on thefittest ground near Cladyford, Lifford and Long Causeyas shall be nearest to their respective quarters; there todraw up in battalions to be ready to fight the enemy and topreserve our lives and all that is dear to us'. There was abridge at Clady and a ford at Lifford. The Long Causeywas a road over the marshes of the Swilly Burn betweenLifford and St. Johnston. These orders were sent all overthe Laggan and all males between the ages of sixteen andsixty were asked to report at the different centres2.

When the Jacobite troops reached the crossings atLifford and Clady they found that they were guarded byconsiderable Protestant forces and that an arch of Cladybridge had been broken down. We have detailed accountsof both crossings from the Jacobite side. The Duke of Ber-wick, the young son of King James, gives the followingaccount of the Clady crossing: 'on April 15 we marched toCladyford where the rebels to the number of 10,000 wereinclined to dispute the passage. There was no ford and onthe opposite side of the bridge, which was broken, theenemy had posted some infantry, well entrenched. We hadbrought with us no more than 350 foot and about 600 horse.The rest of our little army had been left near Strabane. Ourinfantry advanced to the bridge that had been broken downand by the fire of their musketry drove the enemy fromtheir entrenchment. Hamilton, to avail himself of the dis-order the rebels appeared to be in, ordered us to swim overthe river. We instantly threw ourselves into it on horse-back and gained the opposite bank with the loss of only oneofficer and two privates drowned. The infantry at thesame time contrived by means of planks to pass over thebridge and taking possession of the entrenchments beganto fire on the main body of the rebels, which was formed onthe rising ground. This, joined to the bold action we had

County Donegal in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 139just performed, threw them into such a panic that insteadof advancing to attack us as we came out of the water theyall took to flight.' Another Jacobite account says theProtestants took to their heels, crying To Derry, to Derry'3.

For the Lifford crossing we have the account of Mar-shal Rosen, a hard-bitten German who had seen fortyyears' service in the French army. He says that the rebelswere posted in a small fort at Lifford on the bank of theriver and had some artillery. The river was higher thanusual, as there had been rain. Rosen at first thought thatit would be impossible to cross and that he had better jointhe other force at Clady. But he could see the rebels re-treating from Clady and judged that they were demoralisedenough for him to try the Lifford crossing, which he didwhere the Mourne and Finn join. He swam his own horseacross, followed by his men, which so astonished the rebelsthat they fired one round and then retired. Rosen thenjoined up with the Clady force and pursued the rebelstowards Derry4. His despatch has rather a boastful tone,but the Williamite accounts also show that the river wasforced without much difficulty and that the Protestantsbeat a hasty retreat towards Derry. They put all theblame on Lundy and say that his treachery was responsible.But it appears that in open country the Jacobite officers,many of whom had seen service on the continent, were toomuch for the Ulster Protestants, who were amateurs with-out military experience. They had been called out at thelast moment and very little in the way of defence plans canhave been made. Lundy was severely criticised for notholding the Jacobites up at the Long Causey south of St.Johnston; he had ordered a retreat on Derry without mak-ing any stand. The Jacobites thus had the whole Lagganopen to them, wiiich was a valuable source of supply withplenty of forage for the cavalry horses. They made theirheadquarters at St. Johnston.

When Lundy got back to Derry he insisted that the citycould not be defended and got a great many to take thesame view, including two colonels who had just arrived fromEngland with their regiments and now agreed to take themback home again. It was decided to bargain with theJacobite generals about the terms that would be given ifthe city surrendered, and a delegation was sent to St. John-ston, which included the Church of Ireland ArchdeaconHamilton. The Jacobite commanders answered that if thecity was surrendered the citizens would be allowed to livein peace, provided they handed over any horses and armsthat were suitable for military purposes. They were to


have till the next day to make up their minds, and in themeantime it was understood that the Jacobite army wouldnot come near the city.

Meanwhile King James himself was on his waytowards Deny and had got as far as Mongevlin Castle,which was on the bank of the Foyle between Porthall andSt. Johnston. It was on the site of an old Irish castle, whereIneen Dubh had lived, but was now a substantial house ofthe seventeenth century, the home of Archdeacon Hamilton5.James was convinced that if he appeared before the wallsof Derry the citizens would acknowledge their rightful king.He does not seem to have taken in the understanding thathis army should not come near the city, as he took part of itwith him. This was too much for the more rebelliouscitizens. They fired on him from the walls, he beat a hastyretreat to St. Johnston, and soon went back to Dublin tak-ing Marshal Rosen with him. The siege of Derry had begun.For most of it Richard Hamilton was the Jacobite comman-der. Lundy escaped and Derry was defended by a combin-ation of professionals and amateurs: the professionals weretwo army officers, Baker and Michelburne; the amateurs, amilitant Church of Ireland rector, the Rev. George Walker,and a Scottish settler, Adam Murray.

The siege lasted from April 18 to the end of July, andduring it much of county Donegal was occupied either by theJacobites or the Williamites. Most of the Laggan becamethe supply centre for the Jacobite army. A number of Pro-testants continued to live there under James's protection,which was rudely interrupted when Marshal Rosen returnedand began a policy of frightfulness by driving them underthe walls in the hope that the defenders would let them inand so use up their store of food. Hamilton countermand-ed the order and sent the Protestants away to their homes,and James was very angry with Rosen for his barbarousbehaviour. The last stages of the siege led to a scorchedearth policy in the surrounding countryside; houses wereburned and crops destroyed over much of East Donegal andInishowen. Doe Castle had been an outpost of the Derrygarrison, but was retaken by MacSwyne—back again in hisancestral home6. Culmore was a key position at the pointwhere the river flows into Lough Foyle. It soon fell to theJacobites, but to the north of it Inishowen came underWiliiamite control when an English fleet brought Major-General Kirk and three regiments. The fleet was held up bythe boom across the river, but Kirk's men occupied a numberof places on the shores of Loughs Foyle and Swilly and alsogarrisoned Inch Island. On Donegal Bay such Protestants

County Donegal in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 141as Sir Albert Conyngham and the Gores held the coastlinefrom Killybegs to Ballyshannon. Protestants also held theline of the Erne into Enniskillen, which was the other centreof anti-Jacobite resistance in Ulster. The Enniskilleners,who included colonists from South Ulster and North Con-nacht generally, conducted an enterprising defence andranged over a wide area, threatening to cut the Jacobitelines of communication, which lay through Strabane,Omags and Dungannon.

Patrick Sarsfield was based on Sligo, but could notcome further north than the Bundrowes, unless the Protes-tants could be cleared out of Ballyshannon and Belleek. Thecrossing at Ballyshannon was guarded by a tower and gate-way on the bridge. Early in June the Enniskilleners werebringing stores up the Erne from Ballyshannon, when Sars-field approached with a force of horse and dragoons. Askirmish followed, for which we have the following William-ite account: 'Colonel Hamilton (Gustavus Hamilton, theEnniskillen commander) drew out of the town all the horsehe had and a considerable body of foot and attacked theenemy so opportunely and with that courage and resolutionthat they were soon found in disorder and confusion; andthe foot coming up and securing a pass, the whole party wasentirely defeated, Sarsfield and five or six men narrowlyescaping, the rest being most killed and about two hundredtaken, the best of which they kept and the rest they strip-ped and sent away to carry the news to their friends'7. Thisjubilant account may be exaggerated, but the incidentshows how important the Erne line of communication wasfor Enniskillen.

With the object of joining up with Sarsfield, cuttingEnniskillen's link with the sea, and preventing interferencewith the Jacobite lines of communication, the Duke of Ber-wick was sent from Derry up the Finn in the latter part ofJune to set up what was called a flying camp—a mobileforce of four hundred cavalry and dragoons. He made hisheadquarters between Killygordon and Stranorlar at ahouse called Cavan Park, which belonged to Lord Mountjoy.The latter had been sent to France and was safely locked upin the Bastille while Berwick occupied his riverside houseon the Finn. Berwick was only nineteen, but he had seenactive service against the Turks in Hungary. He hadChurchill blood as his mother was Marlborough's sister, andhe later became a distinguished Marshal of France. How-ever, he had only limited success in these operations. Hisfirst effort was to go through Barnesmore and attack Don-egal town, which was garrisoned by three hundred Protes-


tant rebels. He went through the gap at night and attack-ed the town at daybreak. His own account says he burnedthe town and the military stores and commandeered fifteenhundred animals, oxen, cows and sheep. But he did notsucceed in capturing Donegal Castle to which the garrisonretired, and it remained in Protestant control8.

Berwick's next assignment was to move on Enniskillenfrom the north. In the first week of July he transferred hiscamp to Trillick, about twelve miles north-east of Ennis-killen. But before long Marshal Rosen recalled him to dealwith a Williamite force that had come into Lough Swilly,and he returned to Cavan Park. This move into LoughSwilly was made with part of the fleet that had broughtKirk's force into Lough Foyle. It had spent some time atanchor off Red Castle, but early in July part of it roundedMalin Head, anchored off Rathmullen and also made a land-ing on Inch, which was then an island at high tide.

The London Gazette has a detailed account of theWilliamite base on Inch, which threatened to take theJacobite army in the rear, though the threat was not actuallyput into effect. Williamite ships with six hundred menanchored off Rathmullen on July 9. They heard that theIrish had a great cow-camp at Tully, about six Irish milesfrom Rathmullen. Next day a military engineer with aparty landed on Inch. They crossed the island till theycame to the great strand, which was covered by the tide;and they built a redoubt and sent for guns and more menand tools. When the tide was out, the strand was clear andseveral poor Protestants came over to them with theircattle. The Irish sent some dragoons from their Derrycamp, but after some firing they withdrew. On July 11the Inch defences were strengthened with more guns and asecond redoubt. The Williamites sent a small boat toLough Fern, where a Mr. Cunningham with forty Protes-tants had taken refuge on a small island—presumably tosave themselves from the attentions of their Catholicneighbours.

On July 17 the Williamite commander went to Rath-mullen and ordered the officer of the garrison that had beenposted there to remove the Protestants and their cattle toInch. Word had come that the Duke of Berwick had return-ed from the Enniskillen area and was going to attack, whichhe did the next day. The report in the London Gazette wasas follows: 'the Duke of Berwick with about 1500 horse andfoot attacked our party at Rathmullen, who took care tobarricade the streets and some other advantageous pas-sages so that their horse could not break in upon them; the

County Donegal in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 143fight lasted about two hours and then the enemy retiredwith the loss of 240 men. On our side Lieutenant Cunning-ham was killed and an ensign wounded. At night v/e drewour party into the island'9. Berwick's own account says:'I tried the countenance of the enemy's infantry with mydragoons, but it was not possible to dislodge them as longas they were supported by the frigates which fired inces-santly upon us; so that the whole day was spent in skirm-ishing, and the next morning I retired to Cavan Park'1 >.Soon afterwards an Irish party under Cornet Carroll burnedRathmullen. Marshal Rosen wrote to James that Carrollshould be rewarded for this action11.

The Williamites continued to fortify Inch, and finallyhad sixteen cannon on the island and ten on board two shipswhich, at low tide lay dry on the strand and had a detach-ment of 35 men on each. The Jacobite troops made severalappearances on the strand, but when the Williamite cannonfired they withdrew. Inch was also used as a Protestantrefugee camp. Kirk reported that it sheltered over 12,000of the poor inhabitants 'whom the enemy would suddenlyhave destroyed if not protected, they having burned all thehouses above Inch, Rathmullen etc/12. A number of therefugees enlisted in the Williamite array and five companieswere thus added to each regiment. But the Williamites didnot use Inch for an attack on the rear of the Jacobite army,as they might have done. The Jacobite generals were verynervous that they would be trapped in a pincers operationbetween Kirk's troops coming across from Inch and theEnniskilleners coming up from the south. To prevent thepincers closing Rosen asked for the Duke of Berwick to begiven enough troops to capture Ballyshannon. The psychol-ogical effect of the Inch landing was considerable; it helpedto demoralise the Jacobite army and make it more and morepessimistic about being able to take Derry. Plans were madefor withdrawal from the siege. The orders were to destroythe countryside so as to prevent the Williamites feedingthemselves and their horses. The scorched earth policy fellheavily on the Laggan and Inishowen as the Jacobites pre-pared to retreat. What finally decided them to do so v/asthe breaking of the boom across the Foyle on July 28. Twodays later the Inch garrison saw great fires burning in theLetterkenny direction, which they took to be villages seton fire by the Jacobites. Rosen wrote to James that retreatwas the only course: it wculd not be possible to hold Liffordor Strabane or the river crossings on the Finn; the wholecountryside was ruined and laid waste, and troops could notbe maintained in it13. The result was that the entire area


was abandoned to the Williamites. The Jacobite armyretreated towards Dublin, leaving Charlemont in countyArmagh and Carrickfergus as the only strong points stillheld in Ulster.

Meanwhile Bally shannon continued to be a life-line forEnniskillen. Right up to the end of July the Duke of Berwickhoped to cut it off by a combined operation, with his ownforce coming down from Cavan Park and Sarsfield comingup from Bundrowes, where he is said to have had a camp offour thousand men. Berwick wrote a spirited letter fromCavan Park to Sarsfield, whom he addresses by the nick-name of Notorious—a pointer to the reputation Sarsfieldalready had as a dashing soldier:

Dear Notorious,This is to give you notice that Marshal

Rosen or I will march within three or four days from thisplace to Ballyshannon, so that if you look out sharp this wayyou may see us laying on these rebelly and cowering roguesf;which may give you also an opportunity of attacking onthat side of the water to make a diversion. I am afraid thesiege of Derry will be raised and I thank God I have not norever will give my consent unto it. I will say no more ofthis till I meet you at Ballyshannon. In the meanwhile Iremain, dear Notorious,

Your kind friend and servant,Berwick14.

For Brig. Gen. SarsfieldBut Berwick did not meet Sarsfield at Ballyshannon.

The day he wrote his letter—July 31—was the day that theEnniskilleners won a decisive victory at Newtownbutler,eight miles south-east of Enniskillen. As a result of thisdefeat as well as their failure at Derry the Jacobites lostUlster and eventually Ireland. The Williamite commanderwas an English soldier, Colonel Wolseley, who was sent byKirk from Lough Swilly to Killybegs in a frigate called theBonaventure. Its cargo of 70 barrels of powder, 2000 mus-kets and four small field guns was escorted round DonegalBay to Ballyshannon and then on to Enniskillen by 400horsemen and 400 foot-soldiers15.

The collapse of the Jacobite armies in Ulster was large-ly due to self-help on the part of the colonists who turnedDerry and Enniskillen into resistance centres. The Jacobitearmy had not the guns or the siege equipment to takeDerry, and it proved ineffective against the rough-riders ofEnniskillen. William's fleet and army did not come to the

County Donegal in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 145rescue till the eleventh hour, when Derry was nearly starved.Such help as they did give was made possible by the Done-gal harbours and the sea communications which enabledthem to work in co-operation with the Protestant colonistsalong the coast.

The retreat of the Jacobites was followed by the land-ing of Marshal Schomberg and a Williamite army on theshore of Belfast Lough. Next year William himself cameover and found a firm base in Ulster from which to operate.The battle of the Boyne ended James's stay in Ireland. Butthe war went on for another year and Donegal men foughtagainst Donegal men in Munster and Connacht. Sir AlbertConyngham's dragoons had driven Catholics out of thecounty, but when Conyngham got down to Tipperary he metthe Donegal Catholics again16. They had rallied to thestandard of Baldearg O'Donnell, whose arrival caused greatexcitement. He was a brigadier in the Spanish army, whocame to Ireland just after the Boyne and seemed to be thefulfilment of the old prophecy that an O'Donnell with a redmark would be the saviour of Ireland. He was allowed toraise an Ulster corps, but was given no guns to arm it ormoney to pay it; and the people of Munster found the Ulstercreaghts very uncongenial allies.

Baldearg did not turn out to be the saviour of Ireland.As the war went on he became more and more discontented.He thought that he had a better right than Talbot to thetitle of Tyrconnell, and he found that he and his Ulstermenwere cold-shouldered by the rest of the Jacobite army. Afterthe battle of Aughrim he saw no future in the war andbegan to make terms with William's general, Ginkel17. Whilethese negotiations were going on, O'Donnell played a some-what devious part in the operations round Sligo. The Taco >ites held Sligo under the command of Sir Teague O'Regan,an eccentric veteran who had distinguished himself by agallant defence of Charlemont. The Williamite advance onSligo in 1691 was based on Ballyshannon and Belleek, wherethere were bridges over the Erne. The commander wasColonel John Michelburne, one of the heroes of the siege ofDerry. His operations began unluckily. A party of dra-goons, sent to patrol the Bundrowes, were tempted by theidea of fishing for salmon. While they were happily engagedin this way they were attacked by an Irish party and ten ofthem were taken prisoner18. However, after AughrimMichelburne was able to advance in strength on Sligo andstarted to negotiate with Sir Teague O'Regan for the sur-render of this isolated Jacobite outpost. O'Regan agreedthat, unless he was relieved within ten days, he would hand


over Sligo on August 15 and march out with all the honoursof war. When they day came he refused to surrender, andMichelburne's hopes were disappointed. The reason wasthat Baldearg O'Donnell had decided to do his last service toKing James, and at the same time show King William'sgeneral that he was a force to be reckoned with. He march-ed with his Ulstermen to the relief of Sligo, and Sir Teagueaccordingly refused to hand over the town.

Baldearg O'Donnells hand was strengthened by thisshow of force and he proceded to bargain with GeneralGinkel, who promised him the command of a Williamitebrigade in Flanders and to recommend him for the title andestates possessed by his ancestors. In return O'Donnellundertook to help the Williamites against Sligo. In theseoperations he co-operated with Sir Albert Conyngham, Gaeland Gall from the same county. O'Donnell's men did notlike this change of front; many of them refused to followhim in his transfer of allegiance, though others werebrought round by a generous distribution of Williamiteguineas. Conyngham and O'Donnell were attacked by theSligo garrison one foggy morning at Collooney. They weretaken by surprise. Conyngham hurriedly mounted hishorse, which shied and carried him into the Sligo ranks,where he was quickly put to death. The grim story is toldthat an Irish sergeant greeted him with the words: 'SirHalbert you are, and by this halbert you shall die'. TheWilliamite account continues: 'O'Donnell escaped the near-est ever man did from being taken, and if they had got himhe had been presently hanged'19. O'Donnell survived thewar and lived to draw a Williamite pension and later return-ed to the Spanish army, where he became a major-general.He had failed to fulfil a prophecy and must have been a saddisappointment to the people of Donegal.

The war ended with the treaty of Limerick, but it wasin fact a Williamite victory. Catholic hopes for land andChurch collapsed. There was exile for the Wild Geese; pov-erty and humiliation for those who stayed at home. ThfProtestant colonists had been badly frightened by theCatholic challenge. They tried to make sure that then1should never be another one and that Protestant ascendancyshould continue to the end of time.

NOTES

1. S. Pender (ed.), Census of Ireland, c. 1659.2. G. Walker, True account of the siege of Londonderry, p. 48,

County Donegal in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 1473. Berwick, Memoirs, i. 44; J. T. Gilbert (ed.), A Jacobite narrative,

P- 45-4. Analecta Hibernica, xxi. 87-9.5. Dublin Peimy Journal, iv. 240 (1836).6. Hist. MSS Comm., rep. 12, app. vi., p. 142.7. An exact relation of the glorious victory . . . , 1689 (Thorpe coll.,

Nat. Lib. Ire.).8. Berwick, Memoirs, i. 53.9. London Gazette, 8 Aug. 1689.

10. Memoirs, i. 54.11. An. Hib., xxi. 196.12. London Gazette, 5 Aug. 1689.13. An Hib., xxi. 196.14. Ir. Sword, ii. 109.15. A Letter from Liperpool, 1689 (Thorpe coll.).16. T.C.D., MS K. 5. 1, no. 122, quoted by D. Verschoyle in 'Back-

ground to a hidden age', Don. Ann., vi. 119 (1965).17. See J. O'Donovan 'The O'Donnells in exile' in Duffy's Hibernian

Magazine, i. 50-6 (i860).18. Account of the transactions in the north of Ireland, 1691 (Joly coil-

Nat. Lib. Ire.).19. T.C.D., MS K. 5. 11, no. 1097; W. G. Wood-Martin, History, of

Sligo, ii. 133.

12

KILKENNY IN THE JACOBITE WAR

1689-91

ILKENNY, which figured so largely in the ConfederateWar, has been almost entirely neglected by historians

of the Jacobite War. But its share in the events of 1689-91was by no means insignificant. It was visited more thanonce by both King James and King William, and for a con-siderable time it was the Williamite general headquarters.

When William of Orange landed in England in theautumn of 1688, King James set out for London to confronthim, and one of his attendants was the second Duke ofOrmonde. When the twTo rivals were in short range of oneanother, Ormonde after having supper with James went outand joined William, following the example of Churchill andmany others. Ormonde had strong reasons for this; notonly was he an Irish Protestant who saw the rival religionbecoming more and more dominant as a result of James'sideas, but he had a Dutch mother and his Dutch uncleOverkirk was with William as one of his principal officers.Ormonde's defection to William's side naturally affected hisposition in Kilkenny which, like most of Ireland, inclinedto James's side. Kilkenny was a mainly Catholic town andthe Protestant mayor and corporation had been replaced bya Catholic mayor—John Roth—and a corporation wThich wasmostly Catholic, although the town apothecary, JosiasHaydock, who had been on the old corporation, was on thenew one too.

It was an awkward position for Ormonde and theProtestants of Kilkenny. It was thought discreet for one ofthe duke's Protestant agents—Captain John Baxter—to stayoutside the town at Dunmore Castle. Ormonde's affairs werelooked after by James Bryan and Valentine Smyth, whowere Catholics. Smyth reported that Lord Galmoy—one ofthe Catholic Butlers who was James's lord lieutenant forKilkenny—had insisted on using the round tower beside thecastle for storing arms and ammunition. Galmoy was very

K

150 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730inquisitive about what cash there was in the castle andSmyth was afraid he was going to confiscate it. Ormondesent directions that if it was not too late "his papers and allother his goods, pictures, hangings, beds etc. should beshipped off to England." But apparently it was too late, asnothing was done to remove the contents of the castle.

A letter from John Baxter to Ormonde's secretary showshow things at Kilkenny looked from the Protestant pointof view. He is writing from Dunmore: "I and my wife andsmall family . . . have been at this place these six weeksaccording to his grace's order to Mr. Valentine Smyth onmy behalf . . . My lord's servants here are most of themin arms. Mr. James Bryan of Jenkinstowne hath by com-mission raised a troop of horse. Mr. Valentine Smyth's eldestson, who acts in the office under his father, is the cornetto it. Mr. James Shee, one of his grace's collectors, isquartermaster and his brother, Patrick Shea, who is clerkand receiver under Mr. Smyth, is in arms, and MichaelLangton, who supplies that place which last I had atKilkenny Castle, is likewise a trooper under the said Bryan."

In March, 1689, King James arrived at Kinsale and onhis way to Dublin passed through Kilkenny where he stayedthe night of April ,9. There is evidence of the welcome hegot in the account book of Capt. George Gaffney who com-manded a company in Col. Edward Butler's infantryregiment: "Gave the men a barrel of beer to drink theking's health the night he came to Kilkenny—16s.; powderfor to give a volley—2s." In May, 1689, the Patriot Par-liament met in Dublin—a parliament whose members werenearly all Catholics who insisted on repealing the Act ofSettlement, by which many Protestants held lands that theyhad got since 1641, and also on declaring the supporters ofWilliam of Orange guilty of treason, which would involvethe older stratum of Protestant landowners (includingOrmonde) in the loss of their estates, which would then beavailable for distribution to Catholics. In this parliamentKilkenny City was represented by the mayor, John Roth,and by Alderman James Bryan. The county was repre-sented by James Grace of Courtstown and Robert Walsh

Kilkenny in the Jacobite War 151of Clonassy. Five other boroughs in the county were repre-sented by two members each. An act of the Patriot Par-liament that had a special interest for Kilkenny was theact prohibiting the importation of English, Scotch or Welshcoal; it had a clause to prevent profiteering by the ownersof the Kilkenny coalpits by fixing the pithead price at 9d.a barrel. But most of this legislation was in effect a papertransaction; the Jacobite regime did not last long enoughto obtain any substantial results from it and land-hungryCatholics were sorely disappointed.

Several Kilkenny regiments took part in the siege ofDerry: Galmoy's horse and the foot regiments of John Graceand Edward Butler. Galmoy took a prominent part in theearly stages of the siege of Enniskilen, and there is a curiousstory of his attempt to take Crom Castle on Lough Ernewithout having any guns. He seems to have been a manof ingenuity, as he made two dummies out of tin boundround with whipcoard and covered with buckram, so as tolook like real guns. He had them dragged towards the castlewith a great deal of noise and appearance of effort, andthen summoned the castle to surrender under threat ofimmediate bombardment. But his bluff was called and histroops were vigorously repulsed by the garrison.

After the sieges of Derry and Enniskillen were overJames's troops retired from the north and left it open fora Williamite army under the veteran Marshal Schombergwho advanced as far as Dundalk to meet the Jacobite armyin the autumn of 1689. The French ambassador did not thinkmuch of the Jacobite army, but he singled out Lord Galmoy'sas one of the two good cavalry regiments. King James alsoexpressed particular satisfaction with Galmoy's cavalrywhen he reviewed his army at Drogheda. The meetingbetween James's army and Schomberg's was an anti-climax;both were on the defensive, the autumn was very wet andthere was a lot of sickness in both camps. They called it aHay; Schomberg retired to Belfast and James to Dublin.There is a tradition that Schomberg tried to get ColonelJbhn Grace to bring his men over to the Williamite sideand that Grace sent back a firm refusal written on a playing

152 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730card—the six of hearts, which was afterwards locally knownas Grace's card.

In Dublin so many of James's soldiers were sick thatthe city was described as "almost turned into a hospital."James seems to have thought Dublin too unhealthy and tohave spent most of the winter in Kilkenny, which had ahigh reputation for climate:

Water without mud and air without fog,Fire without smoke and land without bog.There are references to James being at Kilkenny in

November, 1689, and for a great part of January, 1690. Itwras also a military centre of some importance; Colonel JohnGrace's and Colonel James Purcell's infantry regimentswere stationed there; Lord Galmoy's cavalry regiment wasdivided between Kilkenny and Maryborough. It was alsoreported that gunsmiths were busy in Kilkenny makingweapons with the help of a plentiful supply of coal. Themilitia was reorganised under the new mayor, John Arch-deacon, who had the rank of major. Protestants were notallowed to be members, but had to pay taxes for the ex-penses. A number of Protestants remained in Kilkennyduring the Jacobite regime and seem to have come throughwithout great suffering; there are not the same atrocitystories about Kilkenny that were published in broadsheetsabout other places at the time. One troublesome affair wasreported in September, 1689, when a Jacobite grenadier issaid to have come into church—the cathedral presumably—during service and "committed several rudenesses" whenhe was turned out by force he went and raised the people,crying out that the Protestants had murdered a grenadierin church and buried him in a vault; upon which there wasan assault made on the church, and seats were pulled upand the people abused and "worse would have followed,had not the governor come in and prevented it."

One result of King James's stay seems to have been thefoundation of the Royal College or University of St. Canice's,Kilkenny, with a rector and eight Drofessors. The Protestantheadmaster of Kilkenny College, Dr. Hinton, had fled withhis pupils and Dr. Phelan, the Catholic bishop of Ossory,

Kilkenny in the Jacobite War 153took the opportunity of using the premises as an educationalinstitution for his own faith; it got its royal charter inFebruary, 1690. As it came to an end that summer after theBattle of the Boyne, it had a short life; but it must havebeen a merry one, as among the goods seized by the William-ites in the house of Walter Lawless at Talbot's Inch were"a hundred barrels of beer from the Irish college."

On its way from the Boyne to Limerick the Irish armypassed»through Kilkenny in what seems to have been rathera disorderly way. There is an account written by an EnglishJacobite called John Stevens. He was at the Boyne on thefirst of July, by the old calendar, and about midday on thefourth he reached Kilkenny. This is how he describes thescene: "All the shops and public houses in the town wereshut and neither meat nor drink to be had, though manywere fainting through want and weariness So,hearing the stores at the castle were broken up and muchbread and drink given out, I resolved to try my fortunethere and found drink carried out in pails and many of iherabble drunk writh what they had got. Yet upon myapproach I perceived some officers whom want had carriedthither as well as me but were somewhat more forward,so ill-treated by Brigadier Wauchope first and next by theDuke of Tyrconnell, who gave a lieutenant a thrust in thebreast with his cane, that I went away resolved rather toperish than run the hazard of being ill used. As soon as wewere drove away the town and stores v/ere sold for £300,which a great officer of ours put in his own pocket whengood men were perishing with hunger and weariness andwhat was left to the en/.'my mi^ht have plentifully relievedtheir wants."

The townsfolk, in fact paid protection money to savethe town and castle from being looted by the Irish army.Tyrconnell and the French general, the Comte de Lauzun,stayed the night in the castle, and one of the last officialacts of the Catholic mayor, John Archdeacon, was toauthorise eight shillings worth of candles to be bought tolight the rooms for them during their stay; there are someOther interesting items in the mayor's accounts ;

154 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730"5s. paid to Patrick McMoran for shoeing Col. Sheldon's

horses, he helping to keep the city from plunder after theroute; £1 14s.: paid for iron for shoeing Lord Tyrconnell'shorses; £3 0 1 paid to Nicholas Murphy for seven carcasesof mutton given to the guards that came with LordTyrconnell; 3s. paid to men and women for carrying cornto the mill for want of horses to get some ground to makebread for the running army after the rout; £1 16s. for irondelivered to Thomas Barry for mending the locks of thecity gate after the rout of the Boyne; £25 14 3 paid to theboard of ordnance for mounting seven iron sakers (cannon)three mounted on field carriages and four on truckles—four placed on half-moons of the city walls and three aboutthe castle of Kilkenny."

There was about a fortnight's gap before the Williamitearmy took over Kilkenny. On July 16 that army reachedCarlow on its march south from Dublin. Ormonde, whohad fought at the Boyne and had led the Williamite forceinto Dublin, was detached to secure Kilkenny, while themain army marched on to Bennettsbridge. Kilkennysurrendered without resistance and the Jacobite historianslamented that a strongly fortified town, which had put upsome resistance to Cromwell, should have been abandonedby the Irish army without a fight.

Ormonde was delighted to find so little damage doneto his castle and its contents. A note was lying on the table;it was from the Comte de Lauzun to say that he had givenparticular directions that the castle should not be damaged.George Story, the chaplain who wrote the Williamitehistory, says that the castle was preserved with all its goodsand furniture, not without the cellars well furnished withwhat the Jacobite army had not had time to drink. Threedays later Ormonde was able to entertain William and hisretinue to dinner in the castle. William was reported to bevery pleased with the beauty and situation of the place.The silver fork he used at dinner was long treasured asan heirloom by the Ormonde family. The Kilkenny Cor-poration has an order with King William's autograph sentfrom his camp at Bennettsbridge superseding the Jacobite

Kilkenny in the Jacobite War 155mayor and corporation and substituting a new, all-Protestant body with Capt. John Baxter as mayor.

William's main army did not go through KilkennyCity; it went across the south-east of the county fromBennettsbridge towards Carrick. There William got badnews from England, where there was a near-panic afterthe English and Dutch navies had been beaten by theFrench ofr Beachy Head. William accordingly decided togo back to England, but when he got to Dublin he wasrelieved to hear the French had not followed up theirvictory and things in England had settled down. So hechanged his mind and rejoined his army on their march toLimerick; on the way he visited Kilkenny again, and heand his whole retinue spent the night of August 2 in thecastle.

The first reverse that William's army met after theBoyne was administered by a Kilkenny veteran, Col.Richard Grace, who held Athlone. William sent Lt.-Gen.Douglas to take it, Grace's answer to Douglas's summonswas that he would eat his old boots first. Douglasbombarded him for a week, shot away all his ammunitionand then withdrew. This set-back was soon followed bySarsfield's raid at Ballyneety, at which young John Gracewas said to have been present as Sarsfield's A.D.C.

Soon after that William abandoned the siege ofLimerick and went back to England. His army in Irelandremained more or less inactive during the winter of 1690-'91under a Dutch general, Ginkel, who made his headquartersat Kilkenny. He was there for most of the time fromOctober, 1690, to May, 16.91. There are several records ofpayments made by the new mayor, John Baxter, formilitary requirements : Soldiers were employed laying sodsto strengthen the fortifications; locks were provided for thebarrier gates; St. Mary's Church was used as a magazine.A military hospital was set up and Ginkel wrote to themayor asking for equipment for it : "the necessariesrequired for the hospital here being not yet arrived . . . .I do hereby require you in the meantime to cause the in-habitants to furnish the said hospital with twenty beds for

156 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730the use of the sick and wounded soldiers." he also askedfor "necessaries for dressing their food as two or threekettles, wooden vessels or earthen chamber pots, woodenplatters and wooden cups for their drink or broth."

During the winter the militia was reorganised and re-stricted to Protestants. There were two companies underCaptains Josias Haydock and Joshua Helsham. The menwere quartered on Catholics as a form of retaliation for theprevious Jacobite arrangement by which Protestants weretaxed to pay for the Catholic militia. The Williamite militiawas not very effectively armed and this became importantwhen the bulk of the regular army moved to the front forthe summer campaign of 1691. Haydock wrote to thelieutenant-governor of Kilkenny, Col. Coote, asking for asupply of arms. He got this rather dusty answer : " as forarms there are none to be had, except the army here havesome to spare . . . . Ammunition is ordered for you andyou must make the best shift you can till arms may behad. 50 of the army will be left in the town to assist you,which is all I could get or that the general could spare."

In the spring of 1691, just before the campaign opened,the Williamites had a series of legal proceedings andsentences of outlawry for high treason were passed againstthe leading supporters of King James. Long lists of nameswere returned for different areas. The Kilkenny city listsincluded Shees, St. Legers, Lawlesses. The county lists hadGraces, Fitzgeralds, Butlers, Comerfords, Walshes, Bryansand many others. Unless the sentences were reversed theseoutlaws stood to lose all their property : most of them werenot landowners, but many of them were—some such asGalmoy and the Graces on a very large scale; others weresubstantial merchants. The threat of confiscation was animportant factor in William's negotiations for putting anend to the war. It was one of the points for settlement atthe treaty of Limerick and the treaty largely turned on it.

The battle of Aughrim on 12th July, 1691, was a majordisaster for the Irish army and really decided the war.Kilkenny men did not take a specially prominent part init, but there is a reference to Lord Galmoy doing good

Kilkenny in the Jacobite War 157

work after the battle in covering the retreat with hisregiment "as prosperously as so small a body could do."One of the prisoners taken was Patrick Lawless, the sonof Walter Lawless of Talbot's Inch. Patrick Lawless laterhad a distinguished career on the Continent and ended upby becoming Spanish ambassador in London and Paris.

The end of the war came with the treaty of Limerick,in which Galmoy took a prominent part and was one ofthe signatories. The scheme of the treaty was that those ofthe Irish army who wished to go to France should beallowed to do so; but in that case they would forfeit theirproperty. Those who wished to stay in Ireland as subjectsof King William would be pardoned and allowed to keeptheir property if they were still in arms at the end of thewar. Those who had been killed or had been taken prisoneror had already surrendered unconditionally would not bepardoned and their estates, if they had any, would beforfeited.

Most of the Irish army had no landed property, butsome had and the majority of them decided to stay inIreland and take advantage of the treaty. Lord Galmoy wasone of the most prominent of the great estate-owners whodecided to go to France and forfeit his Irish estate. Hefought with distinction in the armies of France and Spainand reached the rank of lieutenant-general. His son,Edward, also went to France and was killed at Malplaquet.Another Kilkenny man who went to France and dis-tinguished himself was Michael Roth—nephew of theJacobite mayor, John Roth—who also reached the rank oflieutenant-general and became a count.

On the Williamite side Ginkel was the hero of the dayand returned in triumph to Kilkenny, where he stayed forabout a fortnight in the latter part of October before goingon to Dublin and London.

After the battle came the pay-ofT, and the leadingJacobites v/ere divided into the sheep and the goats—fromthe Williamite point of view. Those who claimed the benefitof the treaty of Limerick had their cases heard, and nearlyall the claims were admitted. Among the successful

158 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730claimants were Col. Edmond Butler of Ballyragget, LordMountgarrett, Captain James Bryan, Major Pierce Butlerof Mustard Garden, Foulks and Henry Comerford, TheobaldDen of Polestown, Capt. George Gaffney, Vincent Nash ofNewhouse near Gowran, Richard Shee, Walter Tobin,Michael St. Leger, and several Purcells and Pays.

One claim was disallowed after a long and heatedargument: that was the claim of Edmund Blanchfield, whowas held to have broken the rules by taking protectionfrom the Williamites and then going back again to theJacobite side. His property was confiscated and sold byauction at Chichester House in College Green, Dublin,where most of it was bought by a London company, theCorporation for making Hollow Sword-Blades. Galmoy'sestate was sold in the same way; so also were the estatesof Walter Lawless of Talbot's Inch, Robert Walsh ofClonassy, Walter Bryan of Bawnmore and several others.The estates were bought either by the Hollow BladesCompany or by individual Protestants. No Catholic wasallowed to bid.

There was much discussion about the case of JohnGrace. The old Col. John had died in 1690. His son, Robert,was wounded and taken prisoner at Aughrim and diedbefore the war ended. The estate was settled on his twosons, Oliver and John. Oliver was in France and died ninedays after his father, John was at Limerick and claimedthe benefit of the treaty. It was argued that as Oliver hadsucceeded to the property while he was in France it shouldbe forfeited. The Graces had an influential relation inEngland—the Duke of Buckingham—and John went overto enlist his help. Unluckily he engaged in a surreptitiouslove-affair while he was staying in the Duke's house; theDuke found out, was furious and refused to help. So theGrace estate came under the hammer at Chichester House.

That was how the eighteenth century began. Theestates of Jacobites who were not protected by the treatyof Limerick were sold to Protestants. Those Jacobites whoseestates were protected by the treaty, such as Butler ofBallyragget or Lord Mountgarrett, faced a century of penal

Kilkenny in the Jacobite War 159laws and political and social eclipse—the direct result ofProtestant victory and Catholic defeat in the Jacobite war.

13

COUNTY LOUTH AND THE JACOBITE WAR

From one aspect the Jacobite war was the concluding phase in a century-longstruggle for the land between Catholic and Protestant. The Cromwellian confiscationhad dispossessed Catholics east of the Shannon; after the restoration of Charles IICatholics had recovered a fraction of their losses, but much less than they had hopedfor. Protestants resented the fact that Catholics had made any recoveries at all.The Restoration Act of Settlement became the centre of controversy. Catholicshoped for its repeal; most Protestants looked on the Act as the guarantee of theirtitle deeds. The Jacobite war brought things to a head. Virtually all Catholics wereon the side of James II and virtually all Protestants on the side of William. Bothsides had come to the conclusion that the complete suppression of their opponentswas essential to their owTn security. Each regarded the other as rebels, and thepenalties for unsuccessful rebellion included the confiscation of land.

Louth had, of course, been one of the counties of the Pale, and most of the landwas owned by colonists of Norman or English stock. Before Cromwell over two-thirdsof the county was owned by the older strata of colonists, who had remained Catholic.At the Restoration Catholics had recovered about a third of their former holding.But it was to a few of the more influential families that most of the restitution wasmade, and most of the smaller owners failed to recover their lands. The Restorationsettlement gave back the broadest acres in the county to Sir John Bellew of Castle-town—later Lord Bellew of Duleek; to Lord Carlingford, head of the Taafe family;to Lord Louth of the Plunkett family. The first two had nearly 6,000 plantationacres each, and Lord Louth had over 4,000 plantation acres; the figures would haveto be nearly doubled to get the equivalent in statute acres. Smaller, but quitesubstantial, estates were recovered by Patrick Bellew of Barmeath, Thomas Clintonof Clintonstown and Nicholas Gernon of Milltown among others. Altogether therewere about twenty Catholic landowners, great and small, shown in the record at theend of the Restoration settlement. In the place of dispossessed landowners newowners had come in, such as Sir William Tichborne, who got Beauly in place of a


Plunkett and built himself the very fine house we can still admire; Henry Bellingham,who got Gernonstown, later named Castlebellingham; Erasmus Smith, who endowedProtestant schools; Henry Townley, whose family name is commemorated in TownleyHall, among others. The largest Protestant landowner, however, was one whosetitles went back long before Oliver Cromwell to the sixteenth century and the dissolu-tion of the monasteries; he was Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda.

When James II came to Ireland in March, 16S9 he was enthusiastically welcomedby Catholics, not so much for his own sake as because he represented the chief hopethey had of recovering and holding their lost lands and political and religiousprivileges. Only in Derry and Enniskillen—the Protestant cities of refuge in thenorth—was James resisted and William acknowledged. The first demand of Catholicswas for a Parliament and a new law to drive a " coach and six " through the Restora-tion Act of Settlement. The Parliament met in May, 1689 and the Louth representa-tives in the House of Commons were now all Catholics. The county was representedby Thomas Bellew of Dundalk and William Talbot of Haggardstown, who wasLord Tyrconnell's nephew. Hugh Gernon and John Babe sat for Ardee; RobertDermot and John Dowdall for Dundalk; Christopher Fitzlgnatius Peppard andBryan Dermot for Carlingford; and Henry Dowdall and Christopher FitzGeorgePeppard for Drogheda. Lords Bellew and Louth sat in the House of Lords. The Actof Settlement was repealed, and all those who had lost land since 1641 could nowhope to get it back. An Act of Attainder was also passed, which attainted or outlawedsome thousands of Protestants unless they acknowledged allegiance to King Jamesby a certain date. If they failed to do so, their lands would be confiscated andavailable for distribution to Catholics. The list included the Earl of Drogheda,Sir William Titchburn, Thomas Bellingham and about sixty others from County Louth,most of whom were in England preparing to help William to conquer Ireland.

But the members of this Patriot Parliament were counting their chickens toosoon. The Acts passed by the Patriot Parliament could be effective only in theevent of a Jacobite victory. Catholic hopes were dashed, first by the successfulresistance of Derry and Enniskillen, and in the following year by the arrival ofWilliam and by his victory at the Boyne. That victory went to the heads of William'sProtestant supporters and they confidently expected that all the land still in Catholicownership would now be available for distribution.

William at first thought the war was won. When he reached Finglas, just northof Dublin, he issued a declaration calling on the Jacobites to surrender uncondition-ally ; he made no promises about their lands. There were plenty of deserving supporterswhom William wished to reward with confiscated Irish land, and it was natural forhim to see the advantage of taking away the estates of Jacobites whose support ofJames had forced William himself to take the appalling risk of coming over toIreland at a time when Holland was threatened by Louis XIV's army and his positionin England was threatened by the French navy. William's Protestant followers also

County Louth and the Jacobite War 163

saw no advantage in making any concession to Irish Catholics who had just repealedthe Act of Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder.

But the demand for unconditional surrender was a mistake. It made the IrishCatholics desperate and they determined to hold out for better terms. They found aleader in Patrick Sarsfield. William met with a serious reverse at Limerick, whichhe had to abandon in the late summer of 1690. The war went on for more than a yearlonger and Ginkel, William's Dutch general, was left in charge of operations. Ginkel'sinstructions were to repair the damage done by the demand for unconditionalsurrender; he was to try to bring the Jacobites to terms in time to avoid an Irishcampaign in 1691. Negotiations went on and Catholic intermediaries were used inthe bargaining; the terms offered wrere some form of toleration for the Catholicreligion and the restoration of, at any rate, most of the lands owned by Catholicswhen the war began. One of the intermediaries was John Bellew, the eldest son ofSir Patrick Bellew of Barmeath. The father was with the Jacobite forces, but theson had remained in Dublin, acknowledged William and put his services at thedisposal of the Williamite government in an effort to get a settlement. To allaysuspicion the Williamite authorities declared him an outlaw when he left for theIrish quarters. This stratagem was not successful, as the Jacobite authorities arrestedJohn Bellew and kept him in prison till after the battle of Aughrim.1 After the warhe got a royal pardon from William. The negotiations did not succeed, partly becauseSarsfield took a tough line with the negotiators, and partly because the terms offeredwere too vague and because Catholics were not convinced of the good faith of William'ssupporters, though they were readier to believe in W7illiam himself.

Meanwhile the Williamites were taking action against the Jacobites and theirproperty in the parts of Ireland under William's control. Estates were taken over byspecial commissioners; law courts were set up, assizes held, and juries returned longlists of Catholic supporters of King James who were to be outlawed. Most of theLouth outlawries seem to have been pronounced in April, 1691, shortly before militaryoperations began again. The list for County Louth contained ninety-nine names andthere were fifty for Drogheda, which was treated as a separate unit.2 The lists werecompiled by Protestant juries in the absence of many of the Jacobites, and there aresome surprising omissions. For instance, they do not include Oliver, who becamethe eighth Lord Louth in 1689 after his father's death, though they do include hisbrother Thomas, who was in France for his education. There is no mention ofSir Patrick Bellew, but his second and third sons, Richard and Christopher, are listed;the eldest son, John, who was doing cloak and dagger work for the Williamites, is notthere. The list begins with the names of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnell, Stickillin,and John, Lord Bellew of Duleek, Castletown, and his second son, Richard; Walter,his eldest son, who was also with the Jacobite army, is not included. There are a

1. Cal. S.P. dom., 1693, p. 133.2. Analecta Hibernica, No. 22.


number of priests mentioned, including Andrew Matthews, Abbot of Mellifont. Thereis an interesting row of Drogheda shopkeepers—John Owens, tailor; Thomas Nugent,baker; Martin Handcock, cooper; Patrick Mahan, bookseller; and James Bellew,skinner. Very few of these outlaws were landowners, but they stood to lose any otherproperty they had, such as houses, stock or leaseholds.

When the summer of 1691 set in nothing had come of the negotiations betweenWilliam and the Catholics, and another campaign became inevitable. Athlone fellat the end of June, and on July 12 William's general, Ginkel, won a decisive militaryvictory at Aughrim. That was a far more bloodthirsty affair than the Boyne, andthe Irish losses were very heavy. Among those wounded and taken prisoner wereLord Bellew and his eldest son, Walter. Limerick was soon the last hope of theIrish, and a very forlorn hope at that. Their spirits were dejected, there was frictionwith the French commanders and much talk of a negotiated settlement. On23rd September, 1691, treaty talks began, in which Sarsfield was the moving spiriton the Jacobite side. The Irish had not much to bargain with: one city with verylittle area to provide supplies or maintain cavalry. On the other hand, William wasmost unwilling to keep his army for another winter in Ireland; he wanted to move itto Flanders, where his position was almost desperate. Ginkel was authorized to go agood way to meet the wishes of the Catholics, but he could not go so far as to offerthem a complete indemnity or to promise official recognition for their church. Therewas hard bargaining before the Treaty of Limerick was signed on 3rd October, 1691.One of the hostages exchanged as a guarantee of good faith during the negotiationswas Lord Louth.

Part of the treaty provided that those of the Irish army who wished to accompanySarsfield to France should be allowed to do so, and that King William should supplyships for their transport. That part of the treaty was carried through without muchtrouble, and those who went formed the nucleus of the celebrated Irish brigades inthe service of France. They were allowed to go, but were treated as outlaws so far asany property they had in Ireland was concerned. Foreign treason lists were laterdrawn up, but they had comparatively few names from Louth—twenty in thecounty list and nineteen in the Drogheda list. Not all of these were soldiers; therewere several priests, including Dominick Maguire, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh,whose Irish address was given as Ardee; many of the Drogheda names were those ofmerchants. The county list included Thomas Plunkett, a brother of Lord Louth, whotransferred from France to Austria and became a captain of cuirassiers in the serviceof the Holy Roman Emperor; he was later allowed to come back to Ireland and spenthis declining years at Louth Hall.1 The list also has several Dermots of Kilcurly anda couple of Taafes of Drumleck.

For those who wished to stay in Ireland, pardon and restoration of their estates,if they had any, were offered to those who were still holding out at the end of the war.

1. Louth MSS. N.L.I.

County Louth and the Jacobite War 165

Those who had been killed or captured or had surrendered unconditionally at anearlier stage were to have their estates confiscated, and so were those who went toFrance. Most of the Irish at Limerick who had landed estates decided to stay inIreland, take the benefit of the articles of the treaty and get back their estates.Tribunals were set up to hear their claims, of which over 1,200 altogether were heardand nearly all allowed.

Twenty-one claims from Louth were admitted. These did not correspond totwenty-one separate estates. The names included several from the same family,and others who were leaseholders or merchants. Among landed proprietors wereSir Patrick Bellew of Barmeath, Lord Louth, Capt. Thomas Cashell of Cashellstownand John Babe of Darver, all of whom seem to have recovered their property withoutmuch trouble. Capt. Roger Bellew of Thomastown had more difficulty in getting hisproperty back; he was involved in long legal proceedings with William Barton, whohad got hold of it in the meantime and tried to intimidate Bellew into giving him along lease of it at a low rent. However, the Bellews seem to have persisted, and theystill had rights in the property in 1736 when they conveyed it to Thomas Tenison.1

In addition to the pardons that automatically went with a successful claim to thearticles of Limerick, a number of special royal pardons were granted by King Williamat his discretion. The estates of Lord Bellew and Lord Carlingford were saved inthis way. The Bellew case was particularly complicated. After the first Lord Bellewand his eldest son had been wounded at Aughrim, they were taken to England asprisoners and died there. Richard, the second son, was at Limerick, and so couldeither stay in Ireland and be pardoned or go to France with Sarsfield and be treatedas an outlaw. Actually, he went to France but claimed that he did so for the sake ofhis health, and not to fight, and that General Ginkel had told him that it would beall right. After his father and brother had died he claimed to be heir to the estatewhich had, in the meantime, been given to Lord Sydney, while Richard Bellewhimself was liable to the penalties of being an outlaw. So he got a pass for himselfand his footman to travel to Holland where he met General Ginkel who promised tointercede for him. He also enlisted the powerful help of the Duke of Shrewsbury.But .he King was very reluctant to give him a pardon; it seemed that Lord Sydneywas afraid of his claiming £3,000 back profits from the estate and he had to promiseto let Sydney keep the money before his pardon went through. To mal 0 assurancedoubly sure, he got his father's outlawry reversed by special warrant and ended upby getting his own claim to the articles of Limerick recognized just before the listsclosed. It appears that he succeeded in doing all this while he was still a Catholic.Early in Anne's reign he was to the fore in protesting against the Popery Bill onbehalf of himself and other Catholics.2 His protest failed, and by 1707 he had con-formed to the Established Church and had taken his seat in the Irish House of Lords.

1. Louth ArchcBological Journal, V, 196.2. Cal. S.P., dom., i6gy, p. 61; B.M. Add. MS. 37, 673, f. 3.


Nicholas Taafe, the second Earl of Carlingford, was killed at the Boyne; but hisbrother and heir, Francis, was high in the favour of the Holy Roman Emperor,William's chief ally. Francis was already a Count of the Holy Roman Empire anda lieutenant-general; soon after he became a field marshal. William gave specialinstructions that no attempt should be made to outlaw the dead brother Nicholas,or to interfere with the Taafe estate.1 Francis died in 1704 and the estate went tohis nephew; when the nephew died in 1738 without children the earldom died out andthe lands were divided, two-thirds to a Protestant relative and one-third to theCatholic Viscount, who sold his share to the Fitzmaurices.

The ten years after the war were filled with disputes about confiscated lands.Protestants were openly hostile to the Treaty of Limerick, which was not confirmedby the Irish Parliament till 1697 and then in a truncated form. William and hisEnglish Parliament quarrelled bitterly about the right to dispose of confiscated landsin Ireland. The English Parliament wanted them to be sold to help to pay for thewar and relieve the harassed tax-payer. William wanted to give them out as rewardsto his friends and supporters. At first William seemed to be getting his way, and anumber of royal grants were made. In some parts of Ireland these were on a fantasticscale—100,000 plantation acres to William's lady friend, the Countess of Orkney;about as much to his young Dutch favourite, Keppel; 150,000 to Bentinck, Earl ofPortland, another Dutchman. There were loud complaints about what were called" the exorbitant grants " of the King. In County Louth the royal grants were moremodest. General Ginkel was given Lord Slane's estate, 40,000 acres in all, but mostof it was in Meath, and the Louth portion was relatively small. Lord Sydney, oneof the few Englishmen whom William liked, was first given Lord Bellew's estate,but when that seemed likely to be recovered by the heir he was given some otherestates, including Stickillin, which had belonged to Lord Tyrconnell. John Baker,whose father had been Governor of Derry during the siege, was given the estate ofNicholas Gernon—Milltown and other lands.

In 1699 the English Commons forced William to agree to an inquiry into theway in which the confiscated lands in Ireland had been allotted. In the followingyear they forced him to agree to an Act of Resumption which cancelled all his grantswith a few exceptions, one of which was John Baker's. The rest of the confiscatedland was vested in a body of trustees to be sold towards the expenses of the war.The Act of Resumption was a humiliating demonstration of the power of the EnglishCommons over the Crown. It was also a humiliating treatment of an Irish questionwithout any consultation with the Irish Parliament—Protestant though it was.That offended the pride of Irish Protestants; their pockets were also affected, asSydney and some others had sold out when they saw how the political wind wasblowing, and Irish Protestants had bought their grants at v/hat seemed very cheap

3. Annesley MSS., XX, 101.

County Louth and the Jacobite War 167rates. The Act made some provision for the " Protestant purchasers," but they werestill to be considerably out of pocket as the result of the resumption proceedings.One of those affected in this way was Sir Richard Levinge, who had bought Tyr-connell's estate of Stickillin, which had been granted to Sydney.1

The trustees took three years over their work, from 1700 to 1703. Most of theirtime was taken up with hearing claims based on settlements made before the warbegan. Two of the Louth claims were successful: Patrick Gernon was able to save theestate of Killincoole, which would otherwise have been forfeited because of theoutlawry of his father, Hugh; in the same way Nicholas Taafe saved the Stephenstownestate which had been held by his outlawed father, Christopher. But the trusteesrejected the claim of Thomas Clinton, junior, to ClintonstowTn. When all the inquiriewere complete and allowance had been made for all the exemptions—under the articlesof Limerick special pardons and successful claims—the balance was put up to auctionat Chichester House on College Green, the site of the present Bank of Ireland. Biddingwas limited to Protestants. Only five estates in County Louth were auctioned:William Talbot's at Haggardstown, bought for Thomas Keightley, one of the RevenueCommissioners; Lord Slane's, bought by John Graham, William Barton and i^nthonyBury; Christopher Cheevers's at Carnantown, bought by John Newton; ThomasClinton's, bought by Sir William Robinson, John Asgill and Thomas Bellingham;and Nicholas D'Arcy's. Bidding at the auction was not keen. War had just brokenout again with France and there was talk of a Jacobite restoration, when everythingwould be in the melting-pot again. A large number of estates remained unsold at theend of the auction; an omnibus bid for them was offered by an English financecompany with the peculiar name of the Corporation for making Hollow Sword Blades.The D'Arcy estate of Stonetown was one of the estates knocked down to the Corpora-tion. However, its Irish land speculation was not a success and a few years later itsold out; Stonetown—over 1,000 plantation acres—was sold for £360 to RichardTisdall, a lawyer and politician. The Hollow Sword Blades company then plungedeven more disastrously into South Sea finance and burst in the famous bubble.

The Chichester House auction of 1703 concluded the complicated series oftransactions known as the Williamite confiscation. In County Louth it did notamount to very much—far less than in some other counties. The big estates, thoseof Lords Bellew, Carlingford and Louth, were protected by the articles or by specialpardons. Several other estates were also protected in these ways or by the admissionof legal settlements. The proportion of lands held by Catholics, which had been lessthan a quarter when the Jacobite war began, was still about a fifth when the auctionfinished. But the period of the Penal Laws was to follow, and life was to be very hardfor landowning Catholics. A number of them changed their faith under the pressure.At the end of the penal period only one substantial estate in the county—Barmeath—seems to have been held by a Catholic. The Williamite confiscation of land was onlypart of the price paid by Catholics for their defeat in the Jacobite war; the shadow ofthat defeat spread over most of the eighteenth century.

1. An abstract of the conveyances is given in Irish Records Commissioners' Reports, 1821-$pp. 348-96.

A. The Town of Sligo.B. The Stone Fort, which is altogether commanded by

the Earth Fort.C. The Earth Fort, on a high ground, and newly fortified

with a good Chemien, Court, and Glacies, wellpalisaded.

D. The entrance into the Fort.E. A Sally-port to relieve the Outworks.F. A Well, which is continually full of water.G. The Retrenchments of the Town.H. A Bastion, which is made on a commanding ground.I. The High-way that leads from Collooney to Sligo.K. The way that leads from Sligo to Ballyshannon.L. The Sea, being a strand at low water.M. The Abbey.N. The Church.O. A Redoubt, which commands the two ways at the>

bottom of the hill.

Sligo in 1689 following retrenching by Colonel Henry Luttrell.Additional fortification to the Earth Fort was by R. Burton,his Majesty's Engineer.

14

SLIGO IN THE JACOBITE WAR, 1689-91

SLIGO played an important part in the Jacobite war. It changed handsseveral times, and there was sharp fighting in and around the town. It wasnot a large place or very strongly fortified, but it was of strategic importance

as the key to Connacht, commanding the road from Ulster, where the Williamiteswere particularly powerful. When the troubles began, Sligo was the mostProtestant part of Connacht. Cromwell had reserved the county for his soldiers,and it was not earmarked for the Irish like Galway, Mayo and Roscommon.In 1688 ninety per cent of the land in the county was owned by Protestants—such families as Coote and Cooper, Gore and Ormsby. Besides the big Protestantlandowners with their substantial houses, there were a good many Protestanttenants; but the greater part of the population was Catholic.

The accession of the Catholic King James II in 1685 had caused anxiety toProtestants and had raised in Catholics the hope of recovering lost land. But nogreat changes had taken place up to the time of the English revolution at the endof 1688, when James was driven off his throne by William of Orange. Tyrconnell,the Catholic viceroy, did not accept the English revolution and did what hecould to provide James with a strong base in Ireland from which he might beable to work his way back to England. Tyrconnell regarded Protestants asfifth columnists, and had a good deal of justification for doing so. Many of theleading Protestants had already left for England and had offered their services toWilliam; many of the Ulster Protestants congregated in Derry and Enniskillenand prepared to oppose Tyrconnell. Outside Ulster there were sporadic attemptsto set up Protestant resistance movements, and Sligo was a conspicuous example.

We have an interesting contemporary account of the situation written by aSligo Protestant, Richard Wood of Castle Lacken.1 He describes the growinganxiety of the Protestants in the county. Orders to disarm them were issued fromDublin Castle; more and more of their cows were stolen; their Protestanttenants were forcibly evicted. The last straw was the talk of a Catholic garrisonbeing sent to occupy the town of Sligo. At the beginning of January 1689 theProtestants decided to take positive action. They formed an association underLord Kingston and the Hon. Chidley Coote and issued a declaration that theywere determined to unite themselves with England and hold to the lawfulgovernment thereof and a free parliament. They went on to declare that they hadtaken up arms as a purely defensive measure without any aggressive intention,unless they were provoked.

They formed troops of both horse and foot and occupied Sligo and a largenumber of strong points round it, such as Grange, which would secure the roadto Ballyshannon and Derry; Newtown on Lough Gill; Manorhamilton;

1 Included in 'Three seventeenth/century Connacht documents', edited by M. O Duigeannain,and published in Galway Arch, and Hist. Journal, xvii, 154/61 (1936).


Collooney; Markree, the home of the Coopers; and Ballintogher, the homeof a redoubtable and militant clergyman named Dr. John Leslie. Sligo itselfwas not a walled town. It had a comparatively modern fort beside the river(close to where the Town Hall now stands) called the Stone Fort, which hadbeen built in Cromwell's time and was armed with seventeen miscellaneous guns,none of them very large. It is shown at B on the accompanying map. On thehill to the north of the river was a derelict earth fort which was to become ofgreat importance during the course of the war, under the name of the GreenFort (C on the map).

The Protestant association took energetic action against any Catholic centresin the neighbourhood, claiming that they were being used as hostile bases.A patrol of troopers under Captain Arthur Cooper of Markree reconnoitred theposition at Ballymote, the Taafe castle, which had a Catholic garrison underCounsellor Terence MacDonagh. MacDonagh's men were drawn up acrossthe road. Cooper's party fired a blunderbuss which killed one man and woundedfive others and drove the rest back into the castle. More vigorous fighting tookplace at Longford Castle which belonged to Henry Crofton. He was of planterstock, but his mother was an O'Conor and he had been brought up a Catholic.The Protestants asserted that Longford Castle was a base for rapparees. So apatrol party under the command of William Ormsby and Francis Gore made anight attack on it, burning the entrance gate which was stoutly defended by thegarrison till they were nearly suffocated by the smoke. The castle was stormedand a number of arms—pikes, skeeans, swords and a few muskets—commandeered.

Two months after this resistance centre had been set up in Sligo letters came infrom Col. Lundy, the Protestant commander at Derry, urging Lord Kingstonand his Sligo men to join the Derry forces, as otherwise he was afraid they wouldnot be able to hold out against the troops Tyrconnell was sending from Dublin.A council of war was held and the ' reverend and judicious' Dr. Leslie carried aresolution not to leave Sligo till the last extremity. Chidley Coote was deputedto go to Derry to explain to Lundy and ask for arms and ammunition. ButLundy wrote again, begging Lord Kingston to consider whether if Derry fellSligo could hold out. So another council of war was held, this time withoutbenefit of the advice of the ' grave and worthy' Dr. Leslie. It was decided toleave Sligo and burn the stores they could not take. The Protestant exodus tookplace on March 24 in bad weather. Some went in a ship then in the harbour,others in open boats, one of which was wrecked near Donegal; most took theBallyshannon road. Wood gives a graphic description of the journey: ' Godknows the hardships poor gentlewomen with their children suffered that nightat Grange and what they endured next day in their march by the extreme hardnessof the weather and the difficulties in passing over rivers, especially Bundrowes,which did sweep the loads off the horses' backs very often '. When they reachedBallyshannon they found that Lundy had double-crossed them; a letter fromhim said that forage was very scarce at Derry and that Lord Kingston should stopwhere he was till further orders. On April 7 orders came to march to Ballybofeyen route for Derry, but by the time they got there King James's forces had crossed

Sligo in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 171the Finn at Clady and cut off the approach to Derry. Sligo had meanwhile beenoccupied by the Jacobites, so Lord Kingston, by now thoroughly disgusted,left for Scotland to join King William; most of his followers made theirway to Enniskillen and took an active part in its defence.

The governor appointed for Sligo by King James was Henry Luttrell, wholater earned a bad name as a traitor at Aughrim and Limerick. During the siegeof Enniskillen Sligo was an important Jacobite base. It was the centre ofoperations for Patrick Sarsfield, who was one of the leading commanders in thenorth/west region. But in spite of Sarsfield's talents the Enniskilleners got thebetter of the fighting. They found a good amateur leader in Thomas Lloydof Croghan near Boyle, who was admiringly referred to by his men as the ' littleCromwell'. He routed the Jacobites near Belleek on the Erne and capturedTerence MacDonagh on Fish Island. The main Jacobite force, however, gotaway and fell back on Sligo. The worst defeat the Jacobites suffered was atNewtownbutler, where the Enniskilleners routed Justin MacCarthy, LordMountcashel, and took him prisoner. That broke up the siege of Enniskillenabout the same time as the siege of Derry was raised and threatened the wholeJacobite position in the north/west. Sarsfield got the news near the Bundrowesand fell back rapidly on Sligo, followed by Col. Francis Gore with three troopsof horse and 150 foot. This was early in August 1689. There is a story of aningenious stratagem thought up by Gore with the object of recovering Sligo forthe Protestants. When Gore's party were within six or seven miles of Sligo theytook an Irish prisoner and brought him to the colonel, who found that he was afoster-brother of his own—his nurse's son. Gore threatened to hang the man butfinally pretended to be overcome by his appeals for mercy and offered to spare himif he would carry a message to Sarsfield's camp and warn half a dozen of Sarsfield'sofficers, who were his particular friends, that the whole Williamite force fromDerry and Enniskillen were on the march to Sligo: 20,000 men who would bethere the next day in overwhelming strength. This was to be a friendly warningto them and the foster/brother was not on any account to tell anyone else. Thefoster/brother, of course, told every one he met on the way to Sligo and started apanic retreat in the direction of Athlone. Sarsfield asked the reason for the panicand the foster-brother was brought to him and told his story. The officers namedby Gore happened to be there and it was well known that Gore had in fact beenfriendly with them; so the story was readily accepted and Sarsfield and his menabandoned Sligo in the face of what they thought was a greatly superior force.Soon afterwards Gore and his small party came into Sligo and found the gunsintact and a quantity of stores left behind by the Jacobites. Whether this story istrue or not, Sarsfield did retire and the Protestants for the second time tookpossession of Sligo.2 Gore was soon reinforced by Sir Albert Conyngham ofMountcharles with his dragoon regiment from south/west Donegal.

A month later Col. Thomas Lloyd, the ' little Cromwell', took commandof Sligo bringing with him three troops of horse. He has given his own accountin a letter to Marshal Schomberg, the veteran who had arrived in the north with a

2 A . Hamilton, A true relation of the actions of the Inniskilling men, London, 169


considerable Williamite army.3 Lloyd said he was very anxious about the Sligoposition, as enemy forces were threatening it. He thought attack the best meansof defence and sallied out in the direction of Boyle. He got as far as Ballinafadby night and sent out an advance party which surprised the Jacobite sentinelson top of the Curlews, killing one and taking three prisoner. The main Jacobiteforce then moved out of Boyle and their infantry then lined the wall of LordKingston's deer park on the southern slope of the Curlews to the east of theroad from Sligo. The Jacobite horse,' which consisted most of the Irish gentry',were drawn up in a lane at the foot of the mountain. Lloyd reconnoitred thesituation about sunrise and found his opponents very strongly posted. However,he ordered Sir Albert Conyngham and his dragoons to get inside the wall of thedeer park and drive out the enemy sheltering behind it. Lloyd himself and CaptainGeorge Cooper then attacked the Jacobite infantry who ran to a nearby bogand then dispersed. The Jacobites' horses were very fresh and galloped throughBoyle and out the other side, unsuccessfully pursued by Lloyd's troopers whosehorses were tired and could not keep up the pace. Lloyd's despatch made themost of a rather minor engagement and was published in full to keep upWilliamite spirits. He was left in possession of Boyle and captured the port/manteau of Col. Charles O'Kelly, the Jacobite commander.

But Lloyd's success was only temporary and he did not keep Boyle for long.Superior enemy forces were concentrating and Sligo was soon to be attacked bythe Jacobites under Sarsfield. The story is told in a couple of Williamite broad/sheets published at the time. They give a lively account of the fighting, though thetopographical details are not easy to make out. One of the broadsheets is 'A fulland impartial relation of the brave and great actions that happened between theIniskilling men and the French Protestants on the one side and the Irish rebelscommanded by Sarsfield on the other, near Sligo \4 The French Protestant inthe story was a Huguenot captain called St. Sauveur, who behaved with greatgallantry. The action started at Jamestown, county Leitrim, which had beenheld as a Protestant outpost. Sarsfield with 5,000 ' choice men' of the Irish armywas joined by a local Connacht force of 2,000 and had no difficulty in drivingthe Jamestown garrison back towards Sligo. The town was defended by Col.Lloyd with Iniskilling foot, helped by the Huguenot St. Sauveur, most of whosemen were grenadiers. The Williamite cavalry had retired towards Ballyshannonand their commander, Russell, had advised Lloyd and St. Sauveur to abandonSligo, but ' they bravely stood to it, defying the enemy'. St. Sauveur occupieda pass not far from the town—apparently Ballysadare—which he maintainedagainst Sarsfield's force till his ammunition was used up, ' the monsieur himselfan excellent marksman often firing at the head of his men, after which theyretreated to the town with no great loss and defended themselves with theirbaggonets in their muskets till they took possession of two of the forts beyondthe town, the French captain . . . the lower fort and Lloyd with the Iniskilling

3 An exact account of the royal army under the Duke of Scbomberg, with particulars of the defeat of theIrish army near Boyle, London, 1689.

4 London, 1689.

Sligo in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 173men . . . the upper fort \ That presumably means that St. Sauveur occupiedthe Stone Fort and Lloyd the Green Fort on the top of the hill. There is anotherbroadsheet which carries the story further, and adds more details.5 This was areport by Captain Richard Smith who came with reinforcements in an attemptto relieve Sligo. He describes a sally by Lloyd's men which forced the enemy toretire till they were reinforced and drove Lloyd and his Iniskillingers back intothe town. The report goes on: ' in the meantime our foot got into the castleand the enemies' foot drew up in the market/place . . . The castle being crasieand not thought tenable our men quitted it and got into the fort which they heldfive days, so long as they had any ammunition left'. This reference to thecrazy castle and the market/place presumably means that the old Fitzgeraldcastle in the middle of the town was first occupied and then abandoned for theStone Fort. The account goes on: * one remarkable stratagem made use of bythe Irish for the storming of the fort was: they built a box of timber as high asthe wall with stairs, through which they might ascend to the top of the wallwithout danger '. The defenders countered this move by tumbling out a parcelof shavings round the base of the contraption and sending down a man in abasket to set the shavings alight. When the rope was being pulled up it wascut by a shot and ' let the poor adventurer fall'. However, another rope was letdown and pulled him up to safety.

George Story, the chief Williamite historian of the war, describes the Huguenotcaptain's defence of the fort.6 He says that the captain was afraid that the enemymight assault the fort under cover of darkness so ' he got a great many fir dealsand dipping the ends of them in tar they made such a light when set on fire thathe discovered the enemy coming with an engine they called a sow; but havingkilled the engineer and two or three more, the rest retreated and he burned theengine'. Sow is a technical term for a siege engine designed to provide cover foran assaulting party. This sow was described as of very strong whole timberbound with iron and covered with two rows of hides and as many of sheepskins,which rendered * her' proof against musket ball or steel arrows.7

M. St. Sauveur put up a gallant fight but his provisions ran out and there wasa shortage of water in the fort; so he surrendered to Sarsfield on honourable termsthat allowed the garrison to march out with their arms and baggage. CaptainSmith paid a tribute to Sarsfield, saying that he faithfully kept the terms agreedand entertained the officers the day they were signed. George Story says thatwhen the garrison were marching over the bridge Sarsfield stood there with apurse of guineas and offered anyone who would fight for King James a horseand arms and five guineas advance pay, but they all answered they would neverfight for the Papishes (as they called them), except one who took the horse andarms and guineas and deserted the next day.8

5 A full and true account of all the remarkable actions and things that have happened in the north of Ireland,London, 1689.

6 G. Story, Impartial history of the affairs of Ireland, pp. 337 W . Harris, Life of William HI, pp. 246x7.8 Story, op. tit., p . 34.


So by the end of October 1689 the Jacobites were again in Sligo and were tohold it for almost two years, nearly as long as the war lasted. It was stronglygarrisoned, with a regiment of horse under Col. Henry Luttrell, a regiment ofdragoons under Sir Neale O'Neill (which later distinguished itself at the Boyne)and 3,000 foot. Luttrell seems to have been an energetic commander, and itwas reported that he repaired two forts and built a third. The accompanyingmap, reproduced from W. G. Wood/Martin's History of Sligo, is styled * The planof the town and forts of Sligo as it is retrenched by the Hon. Col. Henry Luttrellwith the additional fortification done to the earth fort by R. Burton, H.M'sengineer, 1689 \9 The map shows retrenchments round the town from the StoneFort running outside St. John's church and round by the Abbey and furtherretrenchments from the river up to the Green Fort on both sides. It also shows aredoubt commanding the two roads at the bottom of the hill, north/west of thetown. This may be the third fort that Luttrell is said to have made.

By the summer of 1690 things were looking black for the Jacobites. William'sforces in Ireland were building up, and he himself was getting ready to comeover. In May came the surrender of Charlemont, the last Jacobite stronghold inUlster, after a gallant defence by Teague O'Regan, an eccentric veteran. Jameswas delighted with O'Regan's prowess, made him a knight and sent him tocommand in Sligo. So for the next fifteen months Sligo was in charge of thisold warrior. O'Regan came from Ballynecloghy, co. Cork. He had seen servicein France in Charles II's reign and was a good soldier, though he did not looklike one. He was a hunchback and is described as wearing an old weather'beaten wig, a cravat all on one side and boots with a thousand wrinkles in them.10Sir Teague decided that the Stone Fort was indefensible as it was too low down,and that the proper place for the defence was the old earth fort on the top of thehill. So he had the guns brought up to the Green Fort, or Sod Fort as it wasoften called, and made that his main position. The remains of it are still quiteimpressive and it dominates the country in every direction.

The battle of the Boyne was a severe blow to the Jacobites, and the Williamiteadvance towards the Shannon promised to make things very difficult for theSligo garrison. But Richard Grace stoutly defended Athlone against the Scotsgeneral Douglas and Sarsfield at Limerick administered a severe rebuff to KingWilliam himself. William went back to England and left his Dutch generalGinkel in charge of his troops in Ireland.

When winter set in, conditions for fighting became very difficult. But Williamwas most anxious to keep up the pressure on the Irish and not to let themrecuperate too easily in the west. Orders from England came for a two/prongattack on the Irish positions—a southern thrust into Kerry and a simultaneousnorthern thrust towards Sligo, for which General Douglas was detailed. GeneralGinkel's correspondence, which is in the ancestral castle of Amerongen inHolland, has some exchanges between him and Douglas about this winterexpedition against Sligo.11 Douglas objected that he was not strong enough to

9 W. G. WoocUMartin, History of Sligo, ii, 1310 Story, op. cit., p. 62; Cork Hist, and Arch. Jn., xii, nu$ (1906)11 Ginkel papers, Amerongen (Nat. Lib. Ire., microfilm N 4050).

Sligo in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 175deal with Sligo that winter and Ginkel tried to overrule him. He urged Douglasto march with all his forces towards Sligo and do his best to take it; if that wasbeyond him he should at least penetrate into north Connacht to draw enemystrength away from the south where a thrust into Kerry was the other part of theWilliamite strategy. The Jew in charge of the commissariat was to see that enoughbread for Douglas's force was available at Belturbet. Douglas, who was up inArmagh, retorted that if Sligo was to be taken he must have cannon, spades andshovels, engineers, battery masters and other requisites for a siege. ' I have,' hewrote, * neither engineer, battery master, instruments or other necessaries and thusI do not incline to make another Athlone siege; and suppose you had all thenecessaries for a siege I do not see it possible that cannon or waggons can bebrought to Sligo from this province, but if there be any gentleman more knowingthan I in the country let him undertake the matter of conveying the cannon andwaggons to Sligo and I shall give all the assistance I can, but I am sure thething cannot be performed.' William himself wrote to Douglas to say howanxious he was to have Sligo besieged. Douglas again wrote to Ginkel that itcould not be done. * I'm as willing as any mortal, but ... it is not possibleto carry cannon or waggons any way from Ulster to Connacht in the winter*.Douglas said it would be better to wait for the spring when the roads would bein a fitter state for transporting cannon.

Douglas's protests were effective and the idea of attacking Sligo in the winterwas given up. In the meantime the bridge over the Erne at Belleek was repairedand made fit to carry heavy cannon. In March 1691 the Iniskilling foot—ancestors of the Iniskilling Fusiliers—were getting ready at Ballyshannon forthe campaign. Their colonel said he was seeing to arms and tents and exercisingthe regiment twice a week.12 The exercises included raids in the Sligo directionwhich claimed successes in the shape of captured cattle or rapparees killed ortaken prisoner. The main summer campaign opened in June and was directedat Athlone. Sligo was a subsidiary objective. The Williamite commanderwho was to deal with it was Col. John Michelburne who had made a reputationfor himself at the siege of Derry. He held the Erne front with headquarters atBallyshannon. His force consisted of one and a half infantry regiments, a troopeach of Sir Albert Conyngham's and Col. Wynne's dragoons, and a considerablebody of militia.13

Michelburne's operations began unluckily. About the middle of June a partyof dragoons sent to patrol the Bundrowes were tempted by the idea of fishing forsalmon and while they were happily engaged in this way they were attacked by anIrish party under Captain MacSharry and ten of them were taken prisoner andbrought to Sligo. This started a correspondence between Michelburne and SirTeague O'Regan who had been old comrades in arms in France in Charles II'stime. Another of these comrades was Col. Edward Scott, deputy governor ofSligo, who had actually served in the same regiment as Michelburne. Scott

12 Col. Zachariah Tiffin to Ginkel (T .C .D . MS, K.5.5., no. 533 ; Clarke letters).13 Michelburne's operations are described in An account of the transactions in the north of Ireland,

A.D. 1691, London, 1692. The same source contains his letters to O'Regan.


came from Easky, county Sligo. His brother Francis was a lieutenant who hadbeen taken prisoner by the Williamites and lodged in Derry. So Michelburne'sidea was to trade one lieutenant for ten dragoons. The resulting correspondenceintroduces a human note that relieves the rigours of war. Michelburne's firstletter was as follows:

' Sir, 'Tis no small satisfaction to me to know that my old acquaintanceSir Teague O'Regan, the happiness of whose company I have so oftenenjoyed in the French campaign, should be in a garrison so near me, as alsoCol. Scott. I have sent you a pacquet of letters by my drum from theprisoners in Londonderry, one whereof is to Col. Scott from his brotherto whom I have been civil on the colonel's account, which he does kindlyacknowledge. My service to Col. Scott.

I am, sir, your most humble servant,John Michelburne.'

After several letters the prisoners were exchanged and O'Regan threw in someforty Protestants, men, women and children, who wanted to leave Sligo forBallyshannon. Meanwhile Aughrim was fought and things looked gloomyfor the Jacobites. The Williamites kept up the pressure on Sligo and had a decidedsuccess at Ballysadare bridge on July 23 when a party of horse and dragoonsfrom Enniskillen beat back O'Regan and an advanced post. The Enniskillenersclaimed to have beaten the Irish back under the guns of Sligo fort and to havenearly captured Sir Teague himself, if he had not looked so unimpressive thatthey failed to identify him.

King William was anxious to finish off the war in Ireland and had authorisedthe offer of good terms to any commander on the Irish side who would surrender.Michelburne hoped to get O'Regan to accept the terms and wrote him anotherletter on July 26, a fortnight after Aughrim:—

* Sir, You must needs be very sensible of your own weakness by the newsyou have of your army being totally beaten, how that they are not able tostand before us. So pray seriously consider it. I presume you have not yetseen the lords justices' proclamation which I enclosed send you. You havean opportunity to do yourself and your friends a kindness if you do but layhold of this opportunity in treating with me as to the surrender of Sligo.

I am, Sir, your humble servant,John Michelburne.

I thank you for your present of the cask of claret you sent me. Be pleasedto accept of a bottle of usquebaugh and some good London snuff.'

Michelburne followed up his letter with a close blockade of Sligo, andnegotiations started for the surrender of the town. All seemed to go smoothly;terms were drawn up by which the garrison were to hand Sligo over and marchout with the honours of war. Sarsfield, now Lord Lucan, was asked for hisapproval and gave it. August 15 was fixed for the hand over. When the day

Sligo in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 177came Sir Teague refused to surrender and Michelburne's hopes were badlydisappointed. What had gone wrong ? Had O'Regan double/crossed theWilliamites or had he some justification for his refusal ? The Williamites putit down to ' some treacherous inconstancy natural to the mere Irish'. Ginkelclaimed to have intercepted a letter from the deputy governor of Sligo, Col.Scott, to Sarsfield to the effect that the talk of surrender was a stratagem todeceive the enemy.14

Another version gives the Irish side of the story and introduces a remarkablecharacter. This was Hugh Baldearg O'Donnell, a direct descendant of thechieftains of Tir Conaill, who had been a soldier of some distinction in theSpanish service and had arrived in Ireland four days after the battle of the Boyne.15

He claimed to be the rightful earl of Tyrconnell and obviously disliked the titlebeing taken by Richard Talbot, who was of an old English family. He feltthat his lineage and his military experience were not appreciated, and he becamethoroughly dissatisfied. The same offer of terms that the Williamites held outto Sir Teague O'Regan in July 1691 tempted O'Donnell to see what conditionshe could get from King William, and he sent an agent to bargain with GeneralGinkel. What O'Donnell wanted was an opportunity to serve with his Ulsterdivision on William's side in the European war and to be made earl of Tyrconnell.While the bargaining was going on, Sir Teague O'Regan from Sligo sentO'Donnell a letter to say that he had agreed to surrender unless he could berelieved within ten days. O'Donnell had no objection to showing the Williamitesthat he and his Ulstermen were a force to be reckoned with. So he moved to theneighbourhood of Sligo with the result that Michelburne's men retired andO'Regan regarded himself as freed from the undertaking to surrender. Thisversion seems to have been the true one and O'Regan later saw to it that it wasincorporated in the final terms of surrender.16

Michelburne was severely criticised for the Sligo fiasco and disputes arosebetween him and the militia under his command. King William was informedthat' the foolishness of Col. Michelburne before Sligo has encouraged that placeto defend itself and O'Donnell to play one of his Irish tricks instead of submittingas he intended'. Queen Mary ordered an inquiry into Michelburne's conductto be held and the chief command on the Sligo front was given to the earl ofGranard, to whom Michelburne was now subordinate.17

Bargaining went on between the Williamites and O'Donnell, which caused asplit among the Ulstermen, many of whom had no liking for the idea of goingover to William's side. But O'Donnell himself became more and more convincedthat the Jacobite cause was lost. He came to an agreement with Ginkel that heshould be promised the command of two regiments in Flanders and be reconvmended for the title and estates formerly possessed by his ancestors. In return

14 De Ros MSS, 12/102 (P.R.O.N.L).15 J. O'Donovan, ' The O'Donnells in exile' in Duffy's Hibernian Magazine (i860), pp. $o<6,

106/7.

16 The terms are among the Ginkel papers in Amerongen.17 Cal. S. P. iom., 169CI, pp. 501, 528.

177


O'Donnell undertook to help the Williamites against Sligo, in spite of theunwillingness of many of his men. In the latter part of August 1691 he wasoperating in the neighbourhood of Castlebar in conjunction with Sir AlbertConyngham, who wrote some letters about the difficulties O'Donnell washaving with his mutineers. He spoke very highly of O'Donnell's good senseand the way that with the help of Williamite guineas he was managing to over/come the mutiny—a tendentious term for the conduct of troops who fail tofollow their commander when he changes sides. On September 4 O'Donnelland Conyngham had reached Colloony. That night Scott with a force of 700set out from Sligo and on a foggy morning took their opponents by surprise.Conyngham hurried on to his horse, but the animal shied and carried him intothe Irish position. The grim story is told that an Irish sergeant recognised him,called out, * Sir Halbert you are, and by this halbert you shall die' and suited theaction to the word. O'Donnell had a narrow escape; the Williamites were surethat if he had been caught the Irish would have hanged him on the spot. TheWilliamite force had to abandon their tents and baggage and retreat in confusionto Boyle. Scott had scored a distinct success for Sligo. But the Williamitesuperiority in numbers was too great for the result to be in doubt. O'Donnellwas reinforced, pushed Scott back into Sligo and was then sent to take Ballymote.18

Sligo was now closely invested on all sides. From the north Michelburnereached Drumcliffe on September 10 and next day got within half a mile ofSligo. The day after that he forced the outworks and got into the town itself.On the 13th Lord Granard came up from the south and set up his battery againstthe Green Fort. It was not a very formidable battery, consisting only of fieldguns, but even so he had great difficulty in bringing the guns across the Curlews.The horses gave up and the men had to take over. The official account in theDublin Intelligence adds that Granard by some artifice led the defenders to believethat besides field guns he had heavy cannon, mortars, bombs and carcasses(shrapnel), which so terrified them that in a short time they agreed to surrenderon the terms originally arranged with Michelburne.19

The garrison was allowed to march out with full honours of war, with theirarms and baggage, drums beating, colours flying, match lighted and bulletsin their mouths. All who wished could make their way to Limerick, which wasstill in the last throes of the final siege. Sir Teague himself and Col. Scott seemto have got there, as they joined Sarsfield and went off to fight in France. Butmany of Sir Teague's followers saw the end of the war approaching and droppedout of the campaign. Those of the townsmen of Sligo who wished to stay behindwere to be protected in their bodies, liberties and goods, and were to be givenfreedom to pursue their usual occupations. The clergy of the town and districtwere also to be protected and to have full liberty to exercise their functions.20

These terms were not to be maintained in later years, but in the meantime SirTeague's stout defence seemed to have produced an honourable and satisfactory

18 T.C.D. MS, K.5.11, nos. 1065,1089, 1097, 1121; Wood^Martin, op. cit., ii, 133.19 Dublin Intelligence, 15^22 Sept., 1691.20 Ginkel papers, Amerongen.

Sligo in the Jacobite War, 1689-91 179

result. The Green Fort was of great interest to the Williamites. They describedit as being of sod work, extremely strong and well provided, having a garrisonof 6oo men and sixteen guns.

The capture of Sligo was thought worthy of commemoration together withAthlone and Galway. A medal was struck for the three towns and the Sligopart shows the town with the Green Fort on the hill above it. There is a specimenin the British Museum, from which Wood/Martin took one of the illustrationsin his history of Sligo.21

That ends the story of Sligo in the Jacobite war. The town had many changesof fortune, but in the later stages of the war it put up a long and spirited resistancewith slender resources and for many months maintained its key position as theguardian of northern Connacht.

2i Wood/Martin, op. cit., ii. 139-

15

WILLIAMITE PEACE TACTICS, 1690-1

William Il l 's policy for ending the Irish war went throughmany changes during the fifteen months between the

battle of the Boyne and the surrender of Limerick. With thevarying fortunes of the war it oscillated between unconditionalsurrender and the securing of a negotiated settlement by thegrant of liberal terms. William regarded the Irish war as anexasperating sideshow which diverted his forces from the realscene of action in the Netherlands, where he and his allies werehard put to it to withstand the pressure of the French. Fromthe beginning of his reign his policy had been to induce theIrish Jacobites to surrender upon terms, and it was with thegreatest reluctance that he decided in the spring of 1690 thathe must himself go to Ireland and fight the matter out. Ashe put it to his ally the elector of Bavaria :

It is a terrible mortification to me to be able to do so little to contributeto the common good this year, and that I am obliged to go to Ireland,where I shall be as it were out of knowledge of the world. If I cansoon reduce that kingdom I shall afterwards have my hands free to actwith all the more energy against the common enemy.1

For a negotiated settlement the principal questions at issuewere the Catholic religion and the estates of the Jacobites.One of William's first acts after his accession to the English

1 William to elector of Bavaria, 14 Mar. 1690 (N. Japikse, Correspon-dentie van Willem en Bentinck, iii. 158).J iii. 158).

In further references this work is cited as Correspondentie.


crown had been to issue a proclamation, in February 1689, inwhich he called on the Irish Catholics to surrender on a promisethat they should keep their estates and continue to enjoy allthe favour for the private exercise of their religion that thelaw allowed; he also promised that he would speedily call aparliament in Ireland and there promote further indulgence tothem. If, however, they did not surrender within two months,their estates would be forfeited and distributed to those whohad assisted William in reducing Ireland to its due obedience.2At that stage, with William precariously established in Englandand James apparently firmly established in Ireland, there wasalmost no response to this proclamation and it became clearthat Ireland could not be reduced without the use of force.However, there continued to be much discussion in Williamitecircles as to whether the Irish Jacobites could be induced toaccept terms and whether too uncompromising an attitude wouldhave the unfortunate effect of making them desperate andprolonging their resistance. There were several advocates ofa policy of discrimination, and it was suggested that the offerof pardon to the less intransigent might be useful and causeinternal jealousy.3

From the time that he was committed to the Irish expeditionWilliam's general policy appears to have been to offer theminimum of concessions consistent with bringing the war inIreland to a rapid conclusion. It was of over-riding importanceto him to finish that war as soon as possible and switch hisforces over to the continent. At the same time, if he couldbring sufficient pressure on the Irish Jacobites to induce themto surrender unconditionally he would be able to make use oftheir forfeited estates to pay for the campaign and to rewarddeserving friends and helpers. It was not until that policy hadbeen tried and had failed that William accepted the fact thatthe grant of comparatively favourable terms would be necessaryto make the Jacobites submit.

In May 1690, just before he crossed over to Ireland, Williamappointed Sir Robert Southwell to be his principal secretary

2H.M.C. rep. 12, app. vi, p. 165.3 Various arguments are set out in pamphlets published in 1689,

A declaration for Ireland or no declaration?', Reasons for his majestyissuing a general pardon to the rebels of Ireland.

Williamite Peace Tactics, 1690-1 183of state for Ireland. Southwell was ordered to accompanyWilliam on his Irish expedition, and was well aware that oneof his chief duties would be the framing of terms for theconclusion of the war. We have the memorandum which hedrew up to clear his ideas just after his appointment. On thefirst page is the note, ' about a declaration of pardon and howfar to extend or contract it'. In the margin is written, ' toprepare some heads herein as being a matter of great weightand consequence \4 After William's victory at the BoyneSouthwell took the view that the Jacobite cause was hopeless;the body of the people were fled wherever their fears orinclination sent them, and the only course for the leaders wasto ' retire into a few places of strength and there capitulate inthe best manner they can'. If William went on as he hadbegun, the Irish were at his mercy and their lands would provideenough to pay all the arrears of the army and the cost of theIrish expedition; and England would not have cause to repentof ' the care and expense they were at \ 5

William directed Southwell to consult the committee ofprotestants who had taken provisional charge of Dublin.6 Thequestion put to them was ' what is fit to be done for drawingin and protecting the Irish and others now in rebellion againsttheir sacred majesties King William and Queen Mary? * Theresult of the committee's deliberations was reported to William'scamp by Joseph Coghlan, who had represented Trinity Collegein the patriot parliament of 1689. The report maintained asignificant silence about the Jacobite landowners, but recom-mended that a free pardon should be given to members of thelower orders who surrendered and gave up their arms.7 Thecommittee's report was made over to Southwell and his staff,who burned midnight oil in drawing up a declaration, the schemeof which was ' to invite in all of the meaner sort, as farmersor those who have some personal estate in house, goods or cattle,but not to [be] meddling with the landed men till it appearsinto what posture they throw themselves or into what corners

4B.M., Add. MS 19,670, f. 2.5 Southwell to Nottingham, 4 July 1690 (B.M., Add. MS 38,146,

ff. 98-9).6 Same to same, 6 July 1690 (ibid., f. 101).7 Southwell papers in T.C.D., MS I. 6. 11, p. 57.


they retire \ Southwell expected that this would bring in ' thebody of men which make the bulk of the nation and that therest will afterwards look the more abject \ 8

This was the well-known declaration of Finglas, in whichWilliam promised pardon to members of the lower orders whosurrendered by August i. But as for the ' desperate leadersof the rebellion ', as William was now in a position to makethem sensible of their errors, they were to be left to the eventof war, unless by great and manifest demonstrations theyconvinced him that they were deserving of his mercy, whichcould never be refused to the truly penitent.9 This attemptto drive a wedge between the common people and the landedclasses was a complete failure. It had a superficial resemblanceto the Cromwellian policy of exempting the lower orders fromtransplantation to Connacht. But it was ill-adapted to thesituation of 1690, when the Catholic nobility and gentry stillhad considerable forces at their disposal and had not givenup hope of obtaining tolerable terms of peace. In any case adeclaration which confined its terms to worldly goods and madeno reference at all to the question of toleration for the Catholicreligion would have had little appeal for the private soldier,who never showed any inclination to give up the struggle untilthe concluding stages of the war, when he began to be restiveabout getting his pay.

Contemporary accounts, both Williamite and Jacobite, areagreed that the uncompromising character of the declarationof Finglas served to stiffen the Jacobites at a time when theirdefeat at the Boyne must have made their position seemdesperate. Story, the Williamite chaplain, observed that manyof the Irish officers complained that the declaration was toonarrow and that their exclusion from its terms obliged them tostick together as their only means of self-preservation.10 Story'sown view was that William himself would have preferred amore generous declaration but was obliged to consider the viewsof the English interest in Ireland. Bishop Burnet's commentsran on much the same lines :

8 Southwell to Nottingham, 6 July 1690 (H.M.C. Finch MSS, ii. 343).9 London Gazette, 10 July 1690.10 G. W. Story, A continuation of the impartial history of the wars of

Ireland, p. 27.

Williamite Peace Tactics, 1690-1 185

It was hoped that the fullness of the pardon of the commons might haveseparated them from the gentry, and that by this means they would beso forsaken that they would accept of such terms as should be offeredthem. The king had intended to make the pardon more comprehensive,hoping to bring the war soon to an end, but the English in Irelandopposed this. They thought the present opportunity was not to be letgo of breaking the great Irish families, upon whom the inferior sortwould always depend. And in compliance with them the indemnity nowoffered was so limited that it had no effect; for the priests, who governedthe Irish with a very blind and absolute authority, prevailed with themto try theif fortunes still.11

The Jacobite author of ' A light to the blind ' came to a similarconclusion :

But the estated gentlemen the prince excluded from his mercy. Thiswas a foolish edict, and the first of this kind, I believe, that ever hadbeen; for commonly a prince, entering into a country in order to conquerit, doth in the first place encourage the principal persons to submit untohim, and when these are gained the rest do follow in course. I supposethe prince of Orange was persuaded to go against reason in favour ofhis great officers, who would have the Irish Catholic lords of land tobe rejected from all expectation of recovering their estates, because thesaid officers were sure in their own conceits that the Irish army wouldbe overcome at last, and because then they might have those lands bythe prince's grant.12

It is very doubtful whether William was persuaded againsthis better judgment to adopt this uncompromising policy. Theexplanation of the Finglas declaration is presumably thatWilliam's appreciation of the situation after the Boyne wasvery much the same as James's, that all was over for theJacobites. The resistance at Limerick showed William hismistake, and from the autumn of 1690 there was a markedchange of policy. Southwell dropped out of the picture andthe working out of a new policy was chiefly entrusted toWilliam's Dutch advisers—Ginkel, the commander in the field,and Bentinck at William's headquarters. Both Ginkel andBentinck took the view that the war in Ireland should be broughtto an early conclusion by a negotiated settlement, and that thiscould be secured only by the offer of liberal terms to Catholiclandowners. William himself accepted the desirability of anegotiated settlement, but was evidently reluctant to make more

11 G. Burnet, History of his own time (1823 ed.), iv. 99.12 J. T. Gilbert, A Jacobite narrative, pp. 105-6.


concessions than necessary. In particular, he was anxious toarrive at a settlement which would allow for sufficientconfiscations to satisfy his English parliament and himself.The winter session of 1690—i was largely occupied with adispute between William and the commons about the right todispose of the expected Irish forfeitures. The record makesit clear that William throughout kept a close control over policyand that Ginkel had by no means a free hand in his negotiations.

From the Williamite point of view the advantage of thenew policy was that it tended to produce a division of opinionamong the Irish Jacobites, driving a wedge between theinfluential minority who held estates under the restoration actof settlement and the majority who had failed to recover theirlands at the restoration. The land-settlement question involveda distinct cleavage of interest, as was clear from the strongopposition which certain members of the patriot parliament of1689 nad offered to the bill for the repeal of the act of settle-ment. To a large extent this cleavage between the landed andthe landless coincided with the other great line of demarcation,which separated the Catholics of Ireland into Old English andGaels. Ormond's policy had been directed to securing thatas few as possible of the reinstated Catholics should be ofGaelic stock. Apart from the conspicuous exceptions of LordsClancarty and Antrim the overwhelming majority of theCatholics who regained their lands at the restoration belongedto families of Norman or English origin. Besides those whohad wholly or partly recovered their ancestral estates underthe act of settlement, the ' new interest'—such Catholics asDenis Daly who had bought lands granted to protestants—wereattracted by the prospect of a negotiated peace. CharlesO'Kelly, the author of ' The destruction of Cyprus ', was highlycritical of the latter class :

Some Catholics were only too anxious to submit. These were men ofnew interest, so called because they had purchased from usurpers theinheritance of their own countrymen. As these lands were all restoredto the old proprietors by the repeal of the settlement, the covetingpurchasers, preferring their private gains to the general interest ofreligion and country, were for submitting to a government which theyvery well knew would never allow that decree,13

13Macariae excidium (ed. J. C. O'Callaghan, 1850), p. 71.


From the autumn of 1690 a continual series of negotiationstook place between Williamites and Jacobites. There are anumber of letters between Bentinck and Ginkel referring to theprogress of the negotiations and to the movements of Grady,the chief intermediary. Grady was John Grady of ' Cobray \county Clare.14 He is referred to as Counsellor Grady andseems to have been a barrister of the Inner Temple. He firstcomes into the picture at the end of July 1690, when Williamwas about to besiege Limerick. Grady seems to have been sentout of Limerick by the Irish peace party, with Tyrconnell'sknowledge, to see what terms could be obtained from Williamfor the landed Jacobites. He presented himself at William'scamp at Goldenbridge and gave an account of the condition ofthe Jacobite forces, saying that the French were anxious towithdraw and had only been deterred by the Irish threateningthat in that case they would lay down their arms.15 At thisstage William was still in high hopes of taking Limerick andof bringing off his policy of unconditional surrender. The Irishin Limerick were therefore kept waiting for Grady's return.In October the Marquis d'Albeville wrote from Limerick toTyrconnell that not a word had been received from Grady andthat the garrison had had ' no manner of intelligence ' fromthe enemy. D'Albeville was strongly opposed to negotiationsand observed that those who had arranged for Grady's despatchhad little acquaintance with state affairs.16

Grady had meanwhile been sent to England, where Bentinckinterviewed him and decided that his services could be used forfurther negotiations. William's failure at Limerick hadtransformed the military situation, and Williamite policy wasnow directed towards a negotiated settlement. Towards theend of October Bentinck wrote to Ginkel that Grady was beingsent back to Ireland, and that negotiations should be pressedforward as energetically as possible.17 In November he wrote

14 Cobray may be a corruption of Cappaghroe, which in 1631 was inthe possession of John O'Grady (J. Frost, History and topography of thecounty of Clare, p. 317).

15 T.C.D., MS K. 5. 1 (Clarke corr., no. 78).16 D'Albeville to Tyrconnell, 27 Oct. 1690 (H.M.C. Finch MSS, ii

478)."Bentinck to Ginkel, 25 Oct. 1690 {Correspondence, iii. 188).

18

1 8 8 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730again asking what had become of Grady and suggesting the useof other intermediaries as the matter could not be neglected.Early in December William himself wrote to Ginkel urging thatthe fighting should be intensified in Sligo and Kerry as, if therebels were not pressed, it was very doubtful whether they wouldsubmit to such terms as at that stage he was willing to grantthem.19 Ginkel answered that the rebels would be reduced allthe sooner if William was prepared to make some concessions.He evidently thought that William was still trying to drive toohard a bargain.20 Ginkel's representation seems to have hadsome effect, as Bentinck next wrote that Ginkel might allowGrady to propose more favourable terms to the Irish.21 A fewdays later Bentinck wrote again, asking impatiently for the resultof Grady's mission and remarking that if the Irish were to bebrought to terms it was important not to make them desperate.Ginkel might therefore offer them more favourable and moregeneral conditions. What Bentinck feared was that William'sarmy might be locked up in Ireland for the next campaigningseason, which would be disastrous considering the state of affairsin the Netherlands.22 Soon after he wrote that William wasso persuaded of the need to use his arms elsewhere that ifthings could be finished in Ireland he would probably agree togive a general pardon with the exception of certain individuals.As Grady had brought proposals from the other side whichamounted to more or less the same thing, Ginkel was askedto send him back to the enemy with authority to treat on theselines.23 In January Bentinck went so far as to express the viewthat it would be better to do without all the confiscations thanto be deprived of the troops for the next campaigning seasonon the continent.24

The state of the negotiations at the end of 1690 is describedin a memorandum given to the Cornte d'Avaux by a followerof Baldearg O'Donnell. The object of the memorandum was

18 Bentinck to Ginkel, 15 Nov. 1690 (ibid., p. 191).19 W i l l i a m to Ginkel , 4 Dec . 1690 (ibid., p. 192).20 G inke l to W i l l i a m , 9 Dec . 1690 (ibid., p. 194).21 Bentinck to Ginkel, 13 Dec. 1690 (ibid., p. 196).22 Same to same, 20 Dec. 1690 (ibid., pp. 197-8).23 Same to same, 24 Dec. 1690 (ibid., p. 199).24 Same to same, 13 Jan. 1691 (ibid., pp. 201-2).

Wittiamite Peace Tactics, 1690-1 189

to inquire whether French help would be forthcoming to enableO'Donnell to carry on in the event of Ginkel's terms beingaccepted by the Old English. The terms were said to includean undertaking that all who had held estates in 1684 should berestored, with the exception of Lords Clancarty and Antrim.This version tallies with Bentinck's reference to the exceptionof certain individuals from the general pardon. The agreementwas to be guaranteed by the pope, the emperor and the kingof Spain. The memorandum stated that these terms wereattractive to the Old English but stoutly opposed by the Gaels,who had regained little by the restoration settlement and stillhoped to recover what they had had in 1641 or even earlier.25

O'Kelly's references to the negotiations give the impressionthat there was a considerable body of opinion in favour ofmaking terms. One reason which he gave for the Irish deter-mination to resist was their lack of trust in the English, ' whoinfringed so often the public faith \26 From the Williamiteside Story corroborates this, saying that, although Williamhimself was punctilious in his observance of the declaration ofFinglas, some of his officers were apt to neglect the king'shonour when it stood in conflict with their own profit andadvantage.27 The same point is brought out by a letter writtenby a Williamite observer in December 1690. He was of opinionthat if the Williamites had behaved with more lenity the IrishJacobites, from what they themselves had said, would havesubmitted; they thought, however, that public faith had notbeen kept with them, and were particularly put off by the conductof Douglas's army which had ' traversed the country like theplague of Athens, paying no regard to declaration orprotection \28

Light is thrown on these proceedings by a letter in whichSarsfield referred to negotiations which William had beenconducting with Judge Daly, Lord Riverston and others whohad promised to deliver up to him the strongest of the Irishposts. Sarsfield's military activities in the winter of 1690-1were largely directed to countering this move on William's

25 Negoc. d'Avaux en Irl., pp. 738-9.26 Macariae excidium, pp. 58 and 102-4.27 Story, An impartial history, pp. 94-5.28 Mr T. to his brother, 13 Dec. 1690 (T.C.D., MS I. 6. 10, p. 131).

190 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730part.29 At this stage the Irish resistance movement was toostrong for the peace party. In January 1691 Grady told Ginkelthat he could no longer go into the Irish quarters or even sendletters there except at grave risk; he therefore advised thatGinkel should make a public declaration of William's terms.30

Grady himself seems to have gone off to Dublin and to havetaken no further part in the negotiations. In July Ginkel sentfor him but was told that he was seriously ill; his life had beendespaired of, but he was recovering and hoped to be able tojoin Ginkel. We do not, however, hear that he actually did so.31

Ginkel obtained authority for a declaration in which heannounced that William and Mary had no desire to oppresstheir Catholic subjects by persecuting them in their religion orruining them in their estates and fortunes; they had thereforeauthorised Ginkel to grant reasonable terms to all who wouldsubmit.32 This declaration was much too indefinite to produceresults; it was intended as a preliminary feeler. As Coningsby,one of the Dublin lords justices, put it, it was not thoughtproper to offer a general amnesty in the name of the governmentuntil the temper of the Irish had been tried by Ginkel'sdeclaration, which gave them ' all the hopes imaginable ' andyet did not commit the king to anything. In spite of thissomewhat cynical approach Coningsby evidently realised theadvantages of concluding an immediate settlement on liberalterms. In the same letter he wrote: 'you know how littleinclinable I am to show any favour to the Irish, but . . . Icannot help wishing the war were over on any terms \33 Thedeclaration produced no response, and the Williamites couldgauge the temper of the Irish only from a report which oneof their spies brought from Limerick at the end of February.This stated that the Irish depended wholly on Sarsfield's fortune

29SaSarsfieldto Mountcashel, 24 Feb. 1691, quoted from Ministerede la guerre, A' 1066 (Irlande vi), no. 187, by H. Mangan in IrishSword, i. 24.

30 Ginkel to Coningsby, 13 Jan. 1691 (H.M.C., rep. 4, app. p. 318).31 Ginkel to Coningsby, 2 July 1691 (ibid., p. 320); Israel Fielding

to George Clarke, 4 July 1691 (Clarke corr., no. 689).3232 Dublin Intelligence, 3-10 Feb. 1691 (Cal. S.P. dom., 1690-1,33 Coningsby to Nottingham, 17 Feb. 1691 (Col. S.P. dom., I690-1,

P. 265).


and conduct: ' draw him away and they are gone. Tyrconnelland he are no great friends, neither can he abide the French.Tyrconnell never stirred abroad but once since he landed, andhis countenance denotes something of despair.' 34

During the spring of 1691 the negotiations hung fire. Thequestion of terms was again raised by Bentinck in May. Hewrote to Ginkel that if the Irish thought of surrendering, asthere was some ground for hoping, he should not hesitate togive them quite favourable terms, as nothing could be morehelpful than to see the end of the war in Ireland.35 Ginkelaccordingly went up to Dublin and discussed the matter withthe lords justices, Porter and Coningsby. He succeeded inconvincing them that the issue of a proclamation offeringgenerous terms provided the best hope of bringing the war inIreland to an early end. At the same time the lords justiceswere acutely aware of the opposition shown by influentialprotestants in Ireland to the grant of concessions to Catholics.They drafted a proclamation (which they wished to be issuedin the queen's name) offering pardon and restoration of theirestates to all those in arms who surrendered, and promisingCatholics such freedom to practise their religion as they hadenjoyed in the reign of Charles II. The draft proposed tospecify a particular year of Charles's reign for determining theprivileges of Catholics. This draft formed the basis on whichthe articles of Limerick were subsequently drawn up. Whenit was sent over to England for approval Porter observed :' it will be absolutely necessary upon any terms to end the warin Ireland this summer and the most probable means will beby giving the large terms mentioned in the proclamation. TheEnglish here will be offended that the Irish are not quitebeggared, and what the house of commons will say when theysee those lands gone which they designed for the payment ofthe army you can better judge than I.' 36 In their official lettertransmitting the draft the lords justices expressed the convictionthat all the forfeited estates in Ireland were not worth one-

34 Account of affairs in Limerick by Mr Floyd, Feb. I6QI ( T C DMS I. 6. 9, P- 98).

35 Bentinck to Ginkel, 11/21 May 1691 {Correspondentie, p. 236).39 Porter to Sidney, 29 May 1691 (Cal. S.P. dom., I690-1, pp. 393-4).

192 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730tenth the expense and hazard of another summer's war, andthat as there was a party among the Irish which was opposedto any negotiation it was necessary that the proclamation shouldleave no room for suspicion; terms less generous than those

proposals to Bentinck, who was with William in Holland.Bentinck replied that he could not at present convey a decisionbut could say that Ginkel must try and end the war in whateverway he could.38 It appears that William decided not toauthorise the issue of the draft proclamation in the queen'sname, but to leave it to the lords justices to prepare a modifiedversion for issue on their own behalf.39 This modifiedproclamation was sent to Ginkel for publication at a suitableopportunity.

Ginkel waited for a psychological moment, and after thecapture of Athlone published the proclamation, which was dated7 July 1691. In its final form it differed considerably from theoriginal draft. Instead of pardon being offered to any individualin arms who surrendered, a distinction was drawn betweenprivate soldiers and officers. Privates were to be pardoned ifwithin three weeks they surrendered with their horses, arms andequipment, for which they were to be paid. Officers to qualifyfor pardon were not only to surrender themselves within threeweeks but to deliver up any towns, forts or garrisons in theircharge, or to bring over their regiments or troops or a consider-able portion of them. The terms of the proclamation were,however, extended to cover the civilian inhabitants of Limerickand Galway who should be instrumental in procuring thesurrender of those towns. The clause relating to religion wasmuch weaker than in the original draft. No reference wasmade to the reign of Charles II. It was merely stated that assoon as possible William and Mary would summon a parliamentin Ireland and endeavour to obtain for Catholics such furthersecurity as might preserve them from any disturbance on account

37 Lords justices to Nottingham, 29 May 1691 (ibid., pp. 394-5);the draft is with the letter (ibid., pp. 395-6).

38 Bentinck to Ginkel, 8/18 June 1691 {Correspondentie, p. 241).39 T h i s decision was la ter referred to in a let ter from the lords

justices to Ginkel , 13 J u l y 1691 (Clarke corr. no. 735).

proposed would be useless.27 Ginkel communicated the


of their religion.40 Ginkel was dissatisfied with the clauserelating to religion and appears to have omitted it when hefirst published the proclamation. He observed that it promisedCatholics nothing, and apprehended that it would do more harmthan good; he thought it would be better to say nothing thanto give so limited an assurance.41

The immediate effect of this proclamation on Irish Catholicswas inconsiderable; that on protestants was much morepronounced. Protests were made that the terms were far toofavourable. It was alleged that the draft proclamation hadbeen unanimously rejected by the Irish privy council, in spiteof which the lords justices and the general had persisted inissuing it; tnat its terms had been studiously concealed from theprotestants of Ireland; and that ' the lords justices and theirsecretaries will not confess anything relating to it or so muchas speak of it to a protestant \42 The reaction in Englandalso seems to have been unfavourable. Blathwayt, the secretary-at-war, wrote to George Clarke, secretary-at-war for Ireland :' the lords justices' proclamation gives occasion of great talkhere and of some dissatisfaction; as you know it is impossibleto please all at once \43 Ginkel himself thought the terms ofthe proclamation inadequate and raised with the lords justicesthe desirability of offering a general pardon. The lords justicesthought that they had already gone as far as they wereauthorised to do and saw no advantage in extending the terms :* should we publish a general pardon we give away the estatesof all those persons who have submitted already upon easier

40 Bibliotheca Lindesiana contains some earlier draf ts of thisproclamat ion, dated 22 J u n e 1691 . T h e only pr inted copy of the versionof Ju ly 7 is cited as having been in P . R . O . I . (Steele, Tudor and Stuartproclam., ii. 151); the entry notes that the date was inserted in ms.It also cites a ms copy in T.C.D. This is MS I. 6. 10, pp. 149-51;it tallies with the catalogue summary of the P .R .O . I . copy. T h e r e is aFrench version which corresponds exactly with the T . C . D . copy (Archivesnationales, fonds A I, mlxxx. 180).

41 Ginkel to Coningsby, 8 July 1691 ; same to lords justices, 11 July1691 {H.M.C. rep. 4, app. pp. 321-2). It was presumably due to Ginkelthat the Charles II clause reappeared in drafting the articles of Limerick.

42 Notes on the back of the T . C . D . copy of the proclamation.43 Blathwayt to Clarke 30 July 1691 (Clarke corr., no. 798).

194 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730terms, others who are in France and of divers others in nocondition to serve or dis-serve their majesties' interest \44

When the Williamite forces approached Galway, Ginkelsent a trumpeter with a copy of the proclamation to LordDillon, the governor, offering the same terms if Galway weresurrendered before it became necessary to use artillery. Thefirst answer was that Galway would be defended to the last,but next day the governor asked for a safe conduct for emissarieswho were to negotiate a capitulation. Bargaining went on fora whole day and night with the emissaries frequently returningto consult their principals.45 The argument largely turned onwhether the terms should include freemen and inhabitants ofGalway who were not actually in the town at the time. Inparticular the negotiators pressed the case of Clanricarde'sbrother, Lord Bophin, whose regiment was part of the garrison,although he himself was a prisoner captured at Aughrim.There were also several prominent landowners of the countywho were not in Galway town but engaged in negotiating withGinkel. They demanded to be included in the terms althoughthey were not part of the garrison.

Ginkel was in something of a dilemma. The proclamationof July 7 had provoked a storm of protestant indignation. Anearlier letter from William had had the disconcerting postscript:' I must seriously urge you to be more severe than your naturalself. You know with what sort of people you have to deal,who will not be governed by mildness.'46 Ginkel's own viewwas that it was advisable to finish the war as soon as possible,if necessary by giving the Irish a free pardon; one month ofwar cost more than all the forfeitures were worth.47 He agreedto the terms proposed by the Galwaymen, but had evidently somehesitation in doing so. He twice wrote to William to expressthe hope that in the special circumstances his action would beapproved.48 Writing some years later he recalled that the

44 Lords justices to Ginkel , 9 J u l y 1691 (ibid., no. 717).45 A particular relation of the surrender of Galway, 1691. This is

the Wi l l i ami te official version, ' published by a u t h o r i t y ' .46 William to Ginkel, 1/11 May 1691 {Correspondentie, p. 235).47 Ginkel to Coningsby, 24 July 1691 (H.M.C. rep. 4, app. p. 322).48 Ginkel to William, 22 July and 8 Aug. 1691 (Cal. S.P. dom.,

I690-1, pp. 455 and 475).


drafting of the Galway articles had given him particular troubleand that it was a long time before he could bring himself toagree to them. He was induced to do so by the considerationthat prolonging the siege would have put him in a difficultposition as he would have had to use his heavy artillery foreight to ten days to make a breach in the walls.49 The Galwayarticles, which were signed on 21 July 1691, guaranteed theirestates both to the garrison and to the mayor, aldermen, freemenand inhabitants of the town. Ginkel was to be provided witha list of the Catholic clergy, and they and the laity of Galwaywere to be allowed the private practice of their religion; theclergy were to be protected in their persons and property.

The articles were the subject of much criticism. Bentinckwrote to Ginkel that the English thought that he had givenGalway unnecessarily favourable terms.50 A contemporarymemorandum analyses from the official viewpoint the reasonsfor the protestant clamour against the proclamation of July 7and the Galway articles. The writer suggested that one reasonfor the clamour was that ' every gentleman of Ireland ' expecteda share of his Catholic neighbour's lands. He asked whetherthese gentlemen really wanted the war to go on for anotheryear; whether they thought Ireland the ne plus ultra ofthe confederacy; and whether they did not know that a greatpart of the confederacy consisted of Catholic princes. Heapprehended that if Limerick were not taken during Augustthe rainy season would set in : ' and then we know what willbe the effect; for to be baffled now means another year, andthere needs little explanation to know what force outwards isnecessary to blockade twenty thousand men in a double city \51

From the beginning of the final siege of Limerick thequestion of a negotiated settlement assumed increasing impor-

49 Ginkel to Blathwayt, 6/16 Aug. 1697 (N.L.I., Annesley MSS,xxvii. 153).

50 Bentinck to Ginkel, 3/13 Aug. 1691 {Correspondentie, p. 249).The controversy about the Galway articles continued for several years,and was not settled until 1697 when William issued orders restrictingthe benefit of the articles to those who were actually in the town at thetime of its surrender. Copy of order dated 23 Apr. 1697 in AnnesleyMSS, xxvii. 159.

51 Documents on the reduction of Ireland in R.I.A., MS 24. G. 7,P. 83.

196 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730tance. The Williamites were desperately anxious to end thewar before winter set in; the Jacobites had lost heart afterAughrim and a growing number of them were eager to securetolerable terms before it was too late. On August i, two monthsbefore the capitulation, Coningsby wrote to Ginkel from Dublin,impressing on him the need for ending the war that summerand saying that if it could not be ended by force it should beended by treaty:

People generally here are averse to give the Irish any manner of conditions;but it is because they do not, as they ought, consider the misery of thiscountry and less understand the circumstances of affairs abroad. But,my lord, if your lordship finds any inclination in the enemy to make anend of the war by that way and thinks that my being with you maycontribute anything towards it, at a minute's summons, though I comealone, I will be ready to attend you. I am not only more concernedthan ordinary upon the account of our master but have abundance ofuneasiness for fear the year being so far spent should by the cursedweather this country is subject to hinder you, my lord, from finishingthis work you have so gloriously begun and with such strange expeditioncarried on.52

In the second week of August it was reported to Ginkel thatthe Irish were inclined to accept the terms offered in theproclamation, but had ' surmises of the parliament not makingit good '; they had all agreed and signed a paper and takenthe sacrament upon it that they would act only in accordancewith a unanimous decision.53 This seems to refer to a measuretaken by Tyrconnell to counter the growing tendency on thepart of individual Irish officers to consider surrendering onterms. He wrote to Louis : ' I see daily a disposition in certainspirits towards a settlement and, fearing that several mightthink of making a private capitulation, I have made all theofficers and soldiers of the army take an oath of fidelity,beginning with myself \54 Fumeron, the French commissary,expressed the view that the Irish had lost heart after Aughrim.He attributed the administration of the oath to Tyrconnell's

52 Clarke corr., no. 804.53 Capt. Peter Poore to Major Malcolm Hamilton, 8 Aug. 1691

(Clarke corr., no. 875).54 Tyrconnell to Louis, 5/15 Aug. 1691 (Archives nationales, fonds

A I, mlxxx. 187).

Williamite Peace Tactics, 1690-1 197apprehension that some of the Irish officers intended to maketerms with Ginkel independently; he doubted, however, whetherthe device would be as successful as Tyrconnell hoped, sincesome officers had not yet taken the oath. He mentionedthat the dissentients included the delegates who had gone toFrance the previous year.55 The reference is to Henry Luttrelland Colonel Nicholas Purcell whom Berwick, describing themas trouble-makers, had sent to France in September 1690 witha request that James should not allow them to return.58

De Tesse and d'Usson reported to Louis on August 7 that therewas a serious deterioration in the morale of the Irish army;now that the enemy had crossed the Shannon the cavalry weredespondent because they could not be sure of adequate fodderfor their horses; the infantry were rendered no less despondentby the talk of their officers who regarded capitulation as theonly course open to them.57 On the same day an envoy ofGinkel's was discovered to be carrying a letter addressed toHenry Luttrell, the terms of which showed that Luttrell hadfor some time been in communication with the other side.Tyrconnell had him arrested and tried by court martial.Fumeron observed that this was likely to cause trouble asLuttrell had many supporters. De Tesse and d'Usson thoughtthat it would have been better to have hanged him immediately,as his arrest was certain to cause a great stir among the Irishtroops.58 According to ' A light to the blind ', Luttrell pleadedthat he had met his correspondent ' on a privileged day of somelate cessation' and had informed him that the Irish mightsurrender if they were assured that Ginkel had full powersfrom William to grant liberal terms to the Catholics. Thewriter goes on to say that the majority of the court held thatthe prisoner did not deserve death but that Tyrconnell, who

55 Fumeron to —, 23 July/2 Aug. and 6/16 Aug. 1691 (ibid., nos.178 and 192).

56 Berwick, Memoires (1778 ed.), i. 58-9. Purcell was one of thesignatories of the civil articles of Limerick.

57 De Tesse and d'Usson to Louis, 7/17 Aug. 1691 (Archivesnationales, fonds A I, mlxxx. 199).

58 Fumeron to—; de Tesse and d'Usson to Louis, 7/17 Aug. 1691(ibid., nos 201-2).

198 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730was president of the court and had voted against the prisoner,kept him in confinement in the castle, where he remained untilthe surrender of Limerick.59

Tyrconnell died in the middle of August, and a few days laterPorter wrote to George Clarke that he thought this wouldmean the end of hostilities, as it was Tyrconnell's influence whichheld the French and Irish together. He referred to thenegotiations with Luttrell, which he thought would produce adivergence of opinion among the Irish : ' and this together withgood terms and the more dreadful persuasion of your army andcannon will necessarily bring on a speedy submission \60 It is ofinterest that at this stage the Williamites should have regardedTyrconnell rather than Sarsfield as the mainstay of the resistancemovement. It is difficult to say when Sarsfield's influence wasfirst turned towards a negotiated settlement. O'Kelly, withreference to the negotiations which led up to the treaty ofLimerick, talks of the general astonishment caused by the' sudden prodigious change of Sarsfield who now appeared themost active of all commanders to forward the treaty, repre-senting that provisions were giving out and that there was nohope for any terms after that . . . Sarsfield, who was believedto be the last man to hearken to a treaty, was now the mostearnest to push it on—a mystery which requires some furthertime to unravel'.61 On September 17 d'Usson wrote to Louisthat there was a general desire for capitulation and that Sarsfieldhad informed him that they had already waited too long.62

The morale of the Irish army was said to have been seriouslyaffected by a pamphlet put out by the peace party, purportingto be Tyrconnell's last testament. This document was addressedto Tyrconnell's compatriots, warning them that they were onthe verge of ruin and that it was vain to expect help from theFrench, whose policy was to prolong the war into the winterand then withdraw. The pamphlet alleged that, althoughTyrconnell had in public urged that no capitulation should bemade without James's consent, he had done so only because

59 Gilbert, A Jacobite narrative, p. 149.60 Porter to Clarke, 19 Aug. 1691 (Clarke corr., no. 875).61 Macariae excidium, p. 154.62 Archives rationales, fonds A I, mlxxxi. 168.

Williamite Peace Tactics, 1690-1 199he knew that Sarsfield and Luttrell were looking for an oppor-tunity to ruin his reputation. The effects of the pamphlet wereso serious that the Jacobite lords justices asked the French formoney to make an emergency distribution of pay to the army.83

On September 16 Ginkel repeated the offer of the Julyproclamation and announced that it would hold good for anothereight days.64 On the eighth day, September 23, the Jacobitesat last responded. Sarsfield and Wauchope came over to theWilliamite camp and asked for a capitulation and a cessationof arms.65 Ginkel had already received a letter from Williamauthorising him to promise Sarsfield a reward if the negotiationswere successfully concluded—a curious sidelight which illustratesWilliam's anxiety for an Irish settlement and his recognitionthat Sarsfield was the key figure.66 The offer of an Irish estatehad no attractions for Sarsfield, but he asked for the privilegeof sending back some cargoes of wine and other goods fromFrance on the return voyage of the ships which transported theIrish troops. Ginkel fixed the quota at three hundred tons,and we hear later of two of Sarsfield's cargoes being seizedby the customs but released on William's orders.67

The terms proposed by the Jacobites included a generalindemnity and the restoration of all the estates held in 1688.They also asked for freedom of worship and an undertakingthat there should be no discrimination against Catholics inrespect of employment or residence.68 Ginkel replied that itwas not in his power to grant such terms and that there wasno advantage in his promising what the law would not allowhim to make good.69 Ginkel was authorised to grant termsonly to those who were still able to offer opposition. Sarsfieldwas chiefly concerned to provide for those who had held out

63 Fumeron to —, 8 /18 Sept. 1691, enclosing a copy of Tyrconnell 'stestament (ibid., nos 155-6).

64 Ginkel's declaration is given in full by Story, A continuation,pp. 219-20.

65 Ginkel to lords justices, 23 Sept. 1691 (H.M.C. rep. 4, app. p. 323).66 Ginkel to Clarke, 23 Sept. 1691 (Clarke corr., no. 1010).67 Cal. treas. papers, I697-1702, p. 114; P.R.I, rep. D.K. 57, p. 484;

Cal. S.P. dom., I693, P- 5.68 Story, A continuation, p. 230.69 Ginke l to Sarsfield, 30 Sept. 1691 (Clarke corr . no. 1038).

200 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730to the end. There was thus sufficient common ground forreaching a settlement. The articles, which were signed on3 October 1691, guaranteed their estates to the garrison andcitizens of Limerick and to the various forces still holding outin the west, provided that they submitted to William. Whetherthe articles also included those under the protection of theJacobite army was later to be the subject of much controversy.Catholics were to enjoy such privileges in the exercise of theirreligion as were consistent with the laws of Ireland or as theyhad enjoyed in the reign of Charles II.70

The terms of the Limerick articles were strongly criticisedfrom both the Jacobite and the Williamite sides. The Jacobiteauthor of * A light to the blind' commented that the Irishcommissioners had agreed too easily with Ginkel. They shouldhave insisted on the right of all Catholics to the free exerciseof their religion, their temporal liberties and the restoration ofthe estates which they had held in the reign of Charles II. Inparticular he criticised the exclusion from the articles of thoseCatholics who had submitted to William after the Boyne, andalso of those who had been killed or taken prisoner.71 On theother hand the Dublin Protestants thought that the terms werefar too lenient. Archbishop Marsh was aghast at the unhappyconditions that (he knew not how or why) had been grantedto a rebellious people that were not able to defend themselves.72

A contemporary versifier summed up the protestant attitude :

Hard fate that still attends our Irish war,The conquerors lose, the conquered gainers are;Their pen's the symbol of our sword's defeat,We fight like heroes, but like fools we treat.73

In fact the settlement was greatly to William's advantage.The whole course of the negotiations shows that from August1690, when William raised the first siege of Limerick, the rapidconclusion of the war on a negotiated basis was a more pressing

70 For these negotiations see my article ' T h e original draft of thecivil articles of Limerick 1691 ' (I.H.S., viii. 37-44).

71 Gilbert, A Jacobite narrative, pp. 176-8.72 Diary (Irish Ecclesiastical Jn., v. 148).73 The British muse—including a smart poem on the generous articles

of Limerick and Galway (R.I.A., Haliday collection, box 133, tract 9).


objective for Williamites than for Jacobites, and that William'sadvisers were in favour of a liberal settlement if that wouldensure the immediate ending of the Irish campaign. Theinitiative for peace continually came from the Williamite side,and although a minority of the Jacobites were from the firstin favour of responding to Ginkel's approaches they were neverable to prevail until the reverses at Athlone and Aughrimchanged the military situation.

The history of these wartime negotiations must be takeninto account in judging of the way in which the articles ofLimerick were implemented. The terms of the treaty were notthe result of a snap decision taken by the commander in thefield. They were the outcome of a policy gradually developedover the preceding twelve months. In framing this policy theimportance to William and his allies of an early peace in Irelandwas held to outweigh the disadvantages of granting to the IrishJacobites religious and territorial concessions.

16

THE TREATY OF LIMERICK

i. INTRODUCTIONOne of the most controversial questions in Irish history is the

Treaty of Limerick, which brought the Jacobite war of 1689-91 toan end. Catholics hoped that the settlement would secure theirposition, but in fact it ushered in the age of penal laws and Protestantascendancy. There has been much debate about the Treaty. Howwas Patrick Sarsfield induced to agree to it ? How badly was itbroken ? Did its terms leave room for genuine misunderstanding,or was there a clear breach of faith on the part of the Crown and itsagents in England and Ireland ?

The Treaty consisted of two documents: the military articles,which related to the treatment of the Irish army and its transportto France; and the civil articles,1 which related to those who wishedto stay in Ireland as subjects of William and Mary. The chiefargument has been over the civil articles, and in particular the firstarticle, which promised the Roman Catholics of Ireland such privil-eges in the exercise of their religion as were consistent with the lawsof Ireland or as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II; it also heldout the hope that more favourable conditions would be given tothem as soon as a meeting of the Irish Parliament could be calledfor the purpose. Of the other civil articles the most important werethe second, which promised pardon and restoration of confiscatedproperty to certain classes of individuals; the sixth, which put a baron lawsuits arising from war-time incidents; and the ninth, whichmade the Oath of Allegiance the only one to be required of thoseCatholics who submitted to the Crown.

The Treaty was the product of lengthy negotiations, which mustbe viewed against the international and political background.William regarded the Irish campaign as a disagreeable necessity,which he hoped to bring to a satisfactory conclusion as soon aspossible so that he could concentrate on the more important objectof preserving Holland from French attack. For Louis XIV Irelandwas a place with which he hoped that William would be fullyoccupied for as long as possible; to that end he wras prepared to giveFrench aid in moderation to James who, for his part, looked onIreland as a stepping-stone to get him back to England.

For those who supported William and James the most importantquestions were religion and land. The history of the previous half-

1. The text of the civil articles is given in the Appendix.


century had set Protestant against Catholic in a struggle for Irishland. Although the rigour of the Cromwellian settlement had beenmitigated after the Restoration, yet Protestants had decidedly gotthe better of the bargain, and at the end of Charles II's reign theyowned more than three-quarters of the country. But neither sidewas satisfied; Protestants felt aggrieved at having to give up partof the lands they had got under Cromwell; Catholics were dis-appointed at the smallness of the share they had recovered. Theaccession of James aroused the hopes of Catholics and the fears ofProtestants, but the settlement remained intact so long as Jameswas on the throne in England.

The revolution of 1688 opened the way for a decisive settlementin favour of one side or the other. Each regarded the supporters ofthe other as rebels liable to all the penalties of treason, whichincluded the forfeiture of land. The proceedings in the " patriotparliament "—the repeal of the Act of Settlement and the attainderof the leading Williamites—were designed to provide the basis fora wholesale transfer of propert}^ to Catholic ownership. This policywas natural and it was not difficult to justify it. William had alreadyannounced that he would forfeit the estates of those Irish Catholicswho did not submit to him by a certain date. The proceedings ofthe patriot parliament no doubt confirmed Williamites in theirdetermination to exact retribution, but they did not suggest the ideaof confiscating land.

2. THE NEGOTIATION OF THE TREATY

From the time he was committed to the Irish campaign William'spolicy seems to have been to offer the minimum of concessionconsistent with bringing the war in Ireland to a rapid conclusion.If he could get the Irish Jacobites to surrender unconditionally hewould be able to forfeit their estates, which would help to pay forthe war and reward his supporters. His victory at the Boyne seemedto give him his chance; there was every sign that the Catholics ofIreland were at his mercy and would have to take whatever termshe chose to offer them. In his declaration at Finglas the " desperateleaders of the rebellion " were required to surrender unconditionallyand no hope was held out to them that they would be allowed to keeptheir estates; nothing was said about toleration for the Catholicreligion. Observers on both sides thought that William's uncompro-mising attitude had the effect of arousing in the defeated Jacobitesa desperate resolve to continue the struggle as their only means ofself-preservation.

William's failure at Limerick showed him his mistake. From theautumn of 1690 there was a marked change in his policy. He had

The Treaty of Limerick

failed to finish the war in one campaigning season, but he still hopedto do so that winter by negotiation. The French had left, and if theleading Irish Catholics could be induced by the offer of tolerableterms to make peace he could transfer his troops from Ireland toFlanders in time for the season of 1691. All through that winterWilliam's general, Ginkel, bargained with an Irish peace party,which was representative of those who held land under the Restora-tion settlement and were interested in terms that would let themkeep what they had. The majority, who were landless, were notinterested in that kind of bargain. The chief go-between was aCatholic barrister named John Grady, who went to and fro betweenJacobites and Williamites with offers and counter-offers. The Dukeof Wiirtemberg, who commanded the Danish contingent in William'sarmy, described the position in a letter to the King of Denmark:" The Catholic gentleman whom Lt. Gen. Ginkel had sent to Galwayhas returned and has produced a power of attorney from the govern-ment that King James left behind . . . [who] have declared that if aidfrom France (with which thej'- are being cajoled) does not arrive soonthey intend to lay down their arms . . . on condition that they retaintheir estates and the exercise of their religion as in King Charles'stime." This is the first reference to maintaining conditions as theywere in Charles II's time, and it appears that it was the Catholicswho asked for an assurance in these terms. It is remarkable thatCatholics should have considered Charles II's reign—the era of theAct of Settlement and the Popish Plot—as the standard by whichtheir future treatment should be regulated.

But William was not prepared at that stage to let the Catholicsoff so lightly. It was not religion that was the stumbling-block somuch as the question of forfeiting lands. W7illiam was anxious towithhold pardon from some large land-holders in order to have thedisposal of their estates. His Protestant supporters in Ireland wereno less anxious to increase their own property at the expense of theirCatholic neighbours. On the Jacobite side, Sarsfield vigorouslyopposed the negotiations and arrested the chief negotiators—Judge Denis Daly and others. Grady told Ginkel that he could notgo into the Irish quarters or even send letters there except at graverisk. He advised Ginkel to make a public declaration of William'sterms. This was done in the form of an announcement that Williamand Mary had no desire to oppress their Catholic subjects bypersecuting them in their religion or ruining them in their estatesand fortunes, and had authorized Ginkel to grant reasonable termsto all who submitted. This was too vague to be effective, and itbecame clear that the war would not end that winter.

Before fighting started in the summer of 1691 the Williamitesmade another effort to get a negotiated settlement. In May Ginkelwent up to Dublin to consult the Lords Justices, Sir Charles Porterand Thomas Coningsby, both of whom were to be associated with

205


the Limerick Treaty negotiations.1 The terms proposed were sentover to England in the form of a draft proclamation and permissionwas asked to publish it in the Queen's name. The draft restrictedits terms to those Jacobites who were still in arms; they wereoffered, first, restoration of their estates notwithstanding anyattainders and, second, permission to exercise their religion as freelyas in a particular year (left blank in the draft) of Charles II's reign.The Lords Justices emphasized that, as there was a party among theIrish opposed to any negotiation, the terms of the proclamation mustbe such as to leave no room for suspicion. They were well aware thatthere would be criticism from Protestants that the terms were too" tender " to Catholics. Porter wrote to Lord Nottingham, theSecretary of State: " The English here will be offended that the Irishare not quite beggared, and what the House of Commons will saywhen they see those lands gone which they designed for the paymentof the army you can better judge than I." William did not approvethe terms of this draft and would not go beyond a very muchmodified version to be issued by Ginkel at a suitable opportunity.This version contained an offer of pardon restricted to those whobrought over part of their regiments or were instrumental in surren-dering forts or garrisons. The question of religion was treated interms that held out no immediate pledge but gave hopes for thefuture: " Lest those who are to take benefit of this proclamationmay be apprehensive of being persecuted for exercizing theirreligion . . . as soon as their majesties' affairs will permit them tosummon a parliament in this kingdom they will endeavour to procurethem such further security in that particular as may preserve themfrom any disturbance upon the account of their religion." Freedomfrom disturbance seemed to offer more than the bare liberty to" exercize their religion," the wording of which did not exclude theimposition of secular disabilities on Catholics; but Ginkel himselfthought very little of an assurance in such terms; he said it promisednothing to Catholics and would do more harm than good. He issuedthe proclamation soon after the capture of Athlone. Catholics paidlittle attention to it and the number that came over to William'sside at that stage was insignificant. Protestants made much morestir about it and insisted that the terms were far too generous. Itwas made clear to Ginkel that there would be the strongest oppositionto any settlement that gave generous terms to Irish Catholics.

The campaign went on; Ginkel won his major victory at Aughrimon July 12 and the surrender of Galway followed soon after. By theterms granted to Galway the garrison and townsfolk were allowedto keep their property and enjoy the private exercise of theirreligion; Catholic lawyers were allowed the liberty to practise that

i. When there was no Lord Lieutenant or Lord Deputy in Ireland theGovernment was entrusted to two or more Lords Justices. Porter was ajudge and rather more sympathetic to Jacobites than Coningsby, who was apolitician—Macaulay called him " a busy and unscrupulous Whig."

The Treaty of Limerick 205

they had had in Charles IFs reign. Limerick was now the last hope.The greater part of the Jacobite army was concentrated there, andthe wives and families of the leading Catholics also found shelter inthe city. The question of a negotiated settlement came increasinglyto the fore. The disaster at Aughrim had depressed the Jacobitesgenerally and had strengthened the peace party, who were now againengaged in active negotiations with the Williamites. The Duke ofTyrconnell, the Viceroy, sent word to King James, then in France,that help must be sent at once from France or else the Irish must beallowed to make terms. The French decided to send help and urgedthat the Irish should hold out as long as possible. For the widerstrategy of the war it was just as much a French interest thatLimerick should hold out over another winter as it was a Williamiteinterest that Limerick should surrender before the winter set in.In contrast to his attitude after the Boyne, Tyrconnell was now infavour of continued resistance and spared no effort in the uphilltask of making the French policy acceptable to the Irish. But theidea of prolonging resistance into the winter simply to suit Frenchlong-term strategy had no appeal for the Irish Jacobites; they hadno wish to be treated as expendable. Fumeron, the French supplyofficer, wrote pessimistically to the Ministry of War in Paris sayingthat morale was very low among the Irish officers: " If they hold outtill October, as we are urging them to do, it is only on account of thehope that some have of getting help from France so that they can beassured of chasing the enemy out of their country, and that othershave that the King of France will send enough ships to enable themto go to France with their regiments; for without that I think thatthey will capitulate to Ginkel this winter, if fear does not make themdo so sooner." This letter contains the first suggestion that part ofthe Irish army might go to France—a suggestion that was of obviousinterest to those Irish officers who had no landed estates and mightlook forward to a military career on the Continent.

The prospects of a settlement were improved by the death ofTyrconnell, who had a stroke after dining with the French com-mander. His death was a great blow to the pro-French party andweakened the Irish determination to resist. Ginkel was still anxiousto end the war by negotiation. He was very doubtful of his abilityto take Limerick by direct assault. It was a position of great naturalstrength, on an island in the Shannon. The weather was bad, andthe previous year's failure suggested that there was little to beexpected from full-scale siege operations. The alternative was toblockade the city, and it became clear that everything would dependon whether French help could arrive in time. A convoy wasassembled at Brest in August, but a long series of delays held up itsdeparture and it did not actually leave Brest until October, two daysafter the Treaty had been signed. The gross delay undermined thewhole French policy and was a major factor in bringing about thesurrender of Limerick.


On September 16 Ginkel managed to throw a bridge of tin boatsacross the Shannon a couple of miles above Limerick. The Frenchsupply officer reported this reverse in a despatch to Paris andreferred to the latest orders received from France. These were thatLimerick should be held as long as possible, but that if it had to beabandoned then as many as possible of the Irish troops should bebrought over to France. He said that all depended on the Frenchsquadron arriving soon with money and supplies; otherwise the Irishwould surrender and it would be difficult to persuade them to go toFrance. They were attracted by the idea of terms that would allowthem to enjoy their estates in peace; they also hoped for service inKing William's army.

These hopes were stimulated by a declaration that Ginkel madeon the day he crossed the Shannon. It offered pardon and aguarantee of their property to the Irish army and the citizens ofLimerick if they surrendered in eight days. This was their lastchance, he said: " If they still continue obstinate they must beanswerable for the blood and destruction they draw upon themselves,for I hereby acquit myself before God and the world and wash myhands of it." This declaration seems to have had a considerableeffect. The next day d'Usson, the French commander, wrote toKing Louis that there was a general desire for capitulation and thatSarsfield had told him that they had waited far too long. OnSeptember 22 Ginkel launched a heavy attack along the Clare bankof the river and pursued the Irish right up to the Thomond Bridge(which led from the Clare bank to the King's Island on which themain city stood); this so alarmed the French officer in charge of thegateway that he pulled up the drawbridge and cut off the Irishretreat. A horrible slaughter followed; according to the Williamitehistory " Before the killing was over they were laid in heaps on thebridge, higher than the ledges of it." The next day Sarsfield and aScottish Jacobite named Wauchope came into the Williamite campand asked for a capitulation and a cease-fire. This was the beginningof what was referred to as the Treaty. The word was not at that timerestricted to solemn agreements between high contracting parties;it also meant bargaining or negotiation, and it is in that sense thatit was used on this occasion. The final settlement was referred to asthe Articles of Limerick—the military articles and the civil articles.

Talks followed over the next ten days. The Irish representativeswere treated with courtesy and there are references to them diningwith Ginkel and the other Williamite commanders. Ginkel recog-nized Sarsfield's title of Earl of Lucan, though it had been conferredafter King James had been driven out of England. Up to this stageGinkel's offers had all related to the treatment of Catholics inIreland and the question of the estates of Catholic landowners.But, as we have seen, the question of estates was of no interest tothose who were not landowners; landless men were more interestedin the question of the Irish army going to France, which had been

The Treaty of Limerick

under discussion within the walls of Limerick. Ginkel's secretary,an Oxford don named George Clarke, has left us an account of thetalks. According to him the first thing Sarsfield and Wauchopewanted to know was whether they might " go and serve where theyhad a mind." When Ginkel agreed to this, a temporary cease-firewas asked for and the question of further terms was postponed untilSarsfield and Wauchope had returned to the city. A series of talksthen followed in which the terms of the military and civil articleswere hammered out.

The military articles gave little trouble. Ginkel, as the commanderon the spot, considered himself competent to decide them on his ownresponsibility, although they were much more extensive than theterms of an ordinary military capitulation. The military articlesprovided that all who wished to go to France should be allowed todo so, and that Ginkel should be responsible for supplying fiftytransport ships for the journey, and if necessary another twenty,and two men-of-war to carry the principal officers and act as convoy.The Williamites did their best to discourage the Irish soldiers fromgoing to France. But in spite of their efforts several thousand menfollowed Sarsfield and formed the nucleus of the celebrated Irishregiments which distinguished themselves in the French serviceduring the eighteenth century.

The real bargaining took place over the civil articles, the termsthat were to apply to Catholics in Ireland generally and, in particular,to those of the Irish army and of the inhabitants of Limerick whowished to stay in Ireland. Here Ginkel's hands were tied by theprevious instructions he had received, which precluded a generalpardon and did not allow him to go very far in making promises toCatholics. A long meeting was held in the camp on September 25in which Sir Toby Butler, the celebrated lawyer, and the CatholicArchbishops of Armagh and Cashel, Dominic Maguire and JohnBrenan, took part. A couple of days later the Irish proposals weresent out to Ginkel. They asked for a full indemnity, the restorationof all Catholics to their estates, liberty of worship and a priest forevery parish, freedom to hold civil and military appointments andto practise professions and trades, and the transfer to King William'sarmy of any Irish soldiers who were willing to serve against Franceor any other enemy. All these terms, they insisted, should beguaranteed by Act of Parliament, an indication that the Irishrealized that promises from Ginkel and William would not be enoughto allay the hostility of a Protestant parliament.

These demands were far too great for Ginkel to consider. Theywould have given Catholics a much better position than they hadin Charles II's time and would have left William with no confiscatedestates at all. Ginkel was not prepared to consider them as a basisfor discussion. He is said to have replied that " though he was in amanner a stranger to the laws of England yet he understood that theIrish demands were so contradictory to them and dishonourable to

209


himself that he would not grant any such terms." Ginkel then putforward his own proposals and next day there was a further con-ference in which Sarsfield, Sir Toby Butler and others took part.When Sir Toby asked what Ginkel's proposals meant, George Clarke,as Ginkel's secretary, answered that it was intended to grant termsto all who were in a condition to offer opposition. This implied thatthose not still in arms would get no terms. Sarsfield then said that" he would lay his bones in these old walls rather than not take careof those who stuck by them all along": a striking phrase whichshows Sarsfield in a creditable light as taking responsibility for thefate of some of those who would be left behind in Ireland, eventhough his primary interest may have been in the army that hehimself was to lead to France. Discussion then took place onwhether the terms should be extended to those under the protectionof the Irish in certain counties. The point was conceded and thewords " all those under their protection in the said counties " wereincluded in the draft. This was the celebrated missing clause,1 whichwas not to be found in the fair copy that was actually signed.Clarke's papers contain the original draft of the articles, from whichit is clear that the clause was then included. The signing of theTreaty was delayed as the Irish decided that Ginkel's signature tothe civil articles was not enough and that they should also be signedby the Lords Justices who were on their way from Dublin.

The military and the civil articles were both signed on 3 October,1691. The military articles have already been described. The firstof the civil articles provided that Irish Catholics in general shouldenjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as were consis-tent with the laws of Ireland or as they did enjoy in the reign ofCharles II. The word " or " was a significant addition to the originaldraft. There was also an undertaking that William and Mary wouldtry to induce the Irish Parliament to give such further security toCatholics as would preserve them from disturbance on account oftheir religion. Several articles laid down conditions for the Irisharmy and for the inhabitants of Limerick. Pardon was not offeredto those who had been captured or who had already submittedunconditionally. But those who had held out to the end and whowere now prepared to give allegiance to William could claim thebenefit of the articles. This would entitle them to pardon and therestoration of confiscated property: they could, if they were gentle-men, ride with a sword and a case of pistols and keep a gun in theirhouses; they could follow their trades or professions as freely as theyhad done in Charles II's time. An important article was the sixth,which referred to the " great violences " for which both sides hadbeen responsible during the war, and prescribed that in the interestsof peace there should be no legal actions against individuals on eitherside on account of such incidents.

1. For its position in the articles see p. 219 below.


The reasons for the surrender were the subject of much subsequentspeculation on the part of both Jacobites and Williamites. OneJacobite account—the curiously named " Destruction of Cyprus "—referred to the " universal astonishment at the sudden, unexpected,prodigious change of Sarsfield who now appeared the most active ofall commanders to forward the Treaty, representing that provisionswere giving out and that there was no hope for any terms afterthat. . . . His authority made the Irish agree with much reluctancy.Sarsfield, who was believed to be the last man to hearken to a treaty,was now the most earnest to push it on, a mystery which requiressome further time to unravel." This account criticized the wordingof the agreement and said that the articles were not warily drawnbut room was left for captious exceptions, neither was there anyarticle that assured true worship. On the Williamite side, GeorgeClarke made some interesting comments: " It may appear verystrange that a numerous garrison, not oppressed by any want, shouldgive up a town which nobody was in a condition to take from them,at a time when those who lay before it had actually drawn off theircannon and were preparing to march away, and when that garrisondid daily expect a squadron of ships to come to their relief, if theyhad needed any. But when we reflect that the first thing theyinsisted upon when the}/ beat the chamade1 was a liberty to go andserve where they would, and that Sarsfield reckoned on makinghimself considerable in France by being over such a body of troops,it will be easy enough to account for their attitude."

But it was not really surprising that the surrender should havebeen decided upon. The Irish were completely hemmed in and therewas no assurance that the French convoy would get past the Englishfleet that was on the look-out for it. Friction between the Frenchand the Irish, and among the Irish themselves, had undermined thewill to resist. Sarsfield had secured a great deal in getting Ginkel topromise transport to France, and honourable terms seemed to havebeen obtained for those who were to stay at home.

It was a great relief to the Williamites that Sarsfield identifiedhimself with the negotiations. As late as the end of July the EnglishGovernment had been considering the possibility of Sarsfield keepingup the fight with his cavalry even after the surrender of Limerick,and it was debated whether in that case he should be given belligerentstatus or treated as a mere rebel. Ginkel was authorized to promiseSarsfield a reward if he would come to terms. When Sarsfield wassounded on the subject during the course of the treaty talks he saidhe was not interested in an Irish estate but would be glad of a permitto send some cargoes of wine and other goods from France on thereturn voyage of the transport ships. Ginkel agreed and fixed thequota at 300 tons, and we hear of some of Sarsfield's cargoes comingto Ireland and being released by the customs on William's orders.

1. Drum signal as sign of intention to parley.

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It is not necessary to suppose that this privilege affected Sarsfield'sdecision. The fact that an Irish army could be maintained in beingand continue to fight in France must have counted much more witha man who was primarily a soldier. It was a very remarkablebargain to have secured from Ginkel to get him to let the army goand still more to supply the transport for it. Ginkel was criticizedfor going so far. That he did so is the measure of the value heattached to the negotiated surrender of Limerick.

The terms of the Limerick Treaty were heavily criticized by theDublin Protestants as being far too lenient. Archbishop NarcissusMarsh was aghast at the unhappy conditions that (he knew not howor why) had been granted to a rebellious people that were not ableto defend themselves. Bishop Anthony Dopping of Meath deliveredan attack on the Treaty in a sermon in Christ Church Cathedral,arguing that faith should not be kept with a people so perfidious asthe Irish. Another reaction was expressed in A smart poem on thegenerous articles of Limerick and Galway :

Hard fate that still attends our Irish war,The conquerors lose, the conquered gainers are;Their pen's the symbol of our sword's defeat,We fight like heroes but like fools we treat.

3. THE FATE OF THE TREATYThe civil articles were a compromise, which granted to neither side

its full demands. Some of the articles contained an impressive arrayof legal phraseology, but the document as a whole was unsatisfactoryand left loopholes for future argument. There was no guarantee forthe observance of its terms but the good faith of William and hissuccessors. The responsibility of the Crown was weakened ratherthan strengthened by the insertion of an undertaking that it shouldmake the " utmost endeavours " to get the articles confirmed by theIrish Parliament.

It was not long before the first hitch occurred. No sooner hadGinkel's son left for England with the signed copy of the articlesthan it was noticed that the words " and all those under their pro-tection in the said counties " had been left out. This was thebeginning of the long argument about the " missing clause." TheIrish Catholics maintained that the clause had been agreed to andshould be incorporated in the articles. Many Protestants maintainedthat the Catholics were trying to work in an additional concessionto which they had no right. George Clarke was quite definite thatthe words were in the agreed draft and that they had been left outby the clerk who made the fair cop}/. When Ginkel and Clarkereached England they stated what had happened and the case wasdiscussed by William and his Privy Council. A majority in theCouncil was against putting the words in, but William relied on


Ginkel and issued an addition to the letters patent to the effect thatthe words had been carelessly left out and should be regarded apart of the articles. This, one might have thought, should haveended the matter, but it was only the beginning of a long wranglethat went on for more than five years.

Although the Treaty did not come before the Irish Parliamentuntil 1697, the hearing of individual claims was taken up withoutmuch delay. Early in January, 1692 the Lords Justices wrote toWilliam that they had already restored estates to about sixtypersons who appeared certain to be entitled to the benefit of thearticles. In the same month a proclamation was issued that thoseconcerned should put in their claims. By the end of 1694 the IrishPrivy Council had heard 491 claims and had allowed 483 of them.The proceedings showed that William and his Government were inearnest about implementing the terms of the Treaty. Successfulclaimants whose property had been confiscated got it back andothers were allowed to keep their property undisturbed. Barristerssuch as Sir Toby Butler and Sir Stephen Rice were able to practiseand a number of Catholics were allowed to carry arms on the scalelaid down in the articles. At the end of 1694 there had still been nofresh anti-Catholic legislation passed in the Irish Parliament.

William was ready at an early date to include a Bill for theconfirmation of the articles in the programme of the Irish Parliament.But there was such opposition on the part of Protestants that it wasnot found politic to bring up the Bill in the Commons before 1697.The question of giving any additional security to Catholics nevercame up at all. Under the Poynings' Law procedure the full text ofthe Bill had to be approved by the King and his English PrivyCouncil. The Irish Parliament could not change a word; they couldonly accept or reject. The draft sent over to England by the IrishGovernment left out the disputed words " and all such as are undertheir protection in the said counties." The English Council askedwhy, and referred the matter to William in Holland: he best knewhow far his personal honour was involved. Strangely enough,William did not think his honour was involved; he ordered the Billto be approved as it stood.

As it came before the Irish Parliament the Bill had the title" For the confirmation of the articles made at the surrender ofLimerick "; but it fell far short of ratifying the Treaty. It did notrefer at all to the first article by which Catholics in general were tohave the privileges in the exercise of their religion which they hadhad in Charles II's reign. It specified how the second article, infavour of the Irish army and the inhabitants of Limerick, was to beconfirmed, repeating its terms without the missing clause. Thehearing of future claims was limited to a period of two years. Thesixth article, which barred litigation over incidents that had takenplace since the beginning of the war, was confirmed; but the war wasdefined as having begun on 10 April, 1689 (the time-limit originally

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given to Catholics to acknowledge William), and not with the revolu-tion of 1688. A year was allowed for bringing actions about disputesthat had arisen between November, 1688 and April, 1689; Protest-ants were eager to have some opportunity to get redress for whatthey had endured during the Jacobite regime. There was no refer-ence to the ninth article, which specified that no oath should bedemanded except the Oath of Allegiance.

The Protestant House of Commons passed the Bill reluctantly,thinking it too lenient to Catholics. The House of Lords, alsoProtestant, took a surprisingly different attitude. A strong minority,including seven bishops of the Established Church, thought that itwas unjust to Catholics and protested that it did not live up to itstitle: not a single article was confirmed in full. The Bill passed theLords by a small majority and a bewildered English Secretary ofState remarked: " Nothing is more surprising than to see a House ofParliament in Ireland making difficulties on a Bill because it is notfavourable enough to Papists, and that bishops should appear in thehead of the opposition is wonderful to the last degree."

After the passing of the Act the hearing of claims was taken upagain, this time before a bench of nine judges. They heard 713 claimsunder the articles of Limerick and 78 under the articles of Galway;all of which were allowed except eight. The judges appear to havetried to be fair to the claimants and to have been particularly anxiousnot to allow them to be deprived of their rights by the two-year timelimit laid down in the Act; seventy-five claims were admitted on thelast day allowed for hearing. Altogether from 1692 to 1699 nearly1,200 Limerick claims were admitted and the successful claimantsincluded representatives of almost all the leading Jacobite families.There were twelve peers: Antrim, Clanricarde, Dillon, Dunboyne,Dunsany, Fitzwilliam of Merrion, Gormanston, Iveagh, Kingsland,Louth, Mountgarrett and Westmeath. The families of the Pale werewell represented with twenty-eight Fitzgeralds, twenty-two Nugentsand other well-known names. There were Kellys and O'Reillys,MacNamaras and O'Briens, and many other Gaelic names. The listsinclude Captain John Connell, great-grandfather of the Liberator,and Garret Nagle, grandfather of Edmund Burke.

What was the actual effect of leaving the missing clause out of theBill ? It seems to have been unexpectedly small. Because of adispute between William and the English Parliament as to which ofthem should get the profits of confiscated land there was no Act ofParliament that automatically forfeited the estates of Irish suppor-ters of King James. Instead, legal proceedings for high treason weretaken in the courts against a large number of individuals. Up to1697 such proceedings had not been taken in Clare and Mayo, thecounties most affected by the missing clause. After the Bill ratifyingthe Treaty had passed, the Irish Lord Chancellor wrote to theEnglish Government that the clause had been omitted because ofProtestant objections, but that it was still in the King's power to


make it good just as much as if it had been included in the Act.In other words, by refraining from prosecuting, the Governmentcould, after all, give some of the advantages of the missing clause.It appears that this policy was adopted, and a number of Catholicsin the counties in question continued to hold their lands withoutbeing formally admitted within the articles.

What was the effect of Parliament's failure to ratify the firstclause, which should have guaranteed to Catholics the privileges inthe exercise of their religion that they had in Charles II's reign orwere consistent with the laws of Ireland ? In fact, the laws ofIreland guaranteed no religious privileges to Catholics in Charles II'sreign. The Elizabethan Act of Uniformity required all to conformto the Established Church, and though we do not hear of recusancyfines being collected in Charles II's reign, yet there were spasmodicanti-Catholic drives, notably at the time of the Popish Plot. TheAct of 1697 banning bishops and regular clergy certainly affectedthe de facto position; if the Act were observed there would eventuallyhave been no ordained priests in Ireland. Many years later CharlesO'Conor tried to defend William on the ground that, as such lawswere virtually in force in Elizabeth's reign, William did not considerthere was any infraction of the articles of Limerick. The sameargument would apply to the parts of the Anti-Popery Act of 1704aimed at pilgrimages and St. Patrick's Purgatory, although theywere fresh legislation affecting the practice of the Catholic religion.

The second article was generally regarded as the most important.Protestants seem to have considered it primarily as indemnifyinga limited number of individuals from forfeiting their property as aconsequence of supporting James's cause. This part of the articlewas, broadly speaking, kept. Other privileges, such as the carryingof arms and the practice of professions, were secured to the sameindividuals by saving clauses in legislation that affected Catholicsin general. Such a saving clause appeared as late as 1728 in one ofthe Acts that barred Catholics from acting as solicitors. Theprivileges so provided were strictly confined to the terms of thearticle. Thus in the Act of 1695 for the disarming of Papists thereis a section which allowed to those comprehended within the articlesof Limerick the exact quantity of arms specified in the second article.The same Act forbade a Catholic to own a horse worth £5, but thenegotiators of the Treaty had not thought of that point, and noexceptions were allowed. The second article promised to thoseincluded in it the holding of their estates and all the rights they wereentitled to in Charles II's reign by the laws then in force. This under-taking was clearly broken by those clauses of the " Popery Act "of 1704 which turned the Catholic father of a Protestant heir intoa tenant-for-life and prevented Catholics from inheriting fromProtestants. There were important consequences arising from thedisregard of the ninth article, by which Catholics were not to berequired to take more than an oath of allegiance. The demand for

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an oath of abjuration, abjuring the Stuart " pretender " and swear-ing that Anne was rightful queen, went beyond the terms of theOath of Allegiance. The Oath of Abjuration was demanded frombarristers in 1703 and from voters in 1704. By 1709 everyone wasliable to be called on to take it. The Oath of Abjuration wasintensely objected to by Catholics and, although some took it, therewas a general unwillingness to do so.

The passing of the " Popery Act" of 1704 was strenuously opposedby Catholics as a gross breach of the articles of Limerick. Sir TobyButler and Sir Stephen Rice argued the case with much eloquenceat the bar of the Irish House of Commons. Butler contended thatthe Bill would make for " the destroying of the said articles grantedupon the most valuable consideration of surrendering the saidgarrisons at a time when they had the sword in their hands and foranything that then appeared to the contrary might have been in acondition to hold out much longer." He proceeded to set out inlogical form his proofs that the provisions of the Bill would takeaway from Catholics the rights they had possessed by law inCharles II's reign. Rice's arguments were on similar lines: inCharles II's reign there were no laws to prevent a Catholic fatherdisinheriting an undutiful son or from being guardian to his ownchild; there were no laws that barred Catholics from buying land orleasing it for more than thirty-one years or that applied the principleof gavelkind to inheritance by Catholics. He claimed that the Actwould be " an apparent breach of those articles and the public faithalso and highly justify the French King's breaking the edict ofNantes."

In the debate that followed several members of the Commons (whowere, of course, all Protestants) admitted that the articles ofLimerick had been granted on the public faith and that if the Billcontravened them it ought to be rejected. They argued, however,that the articles were not contravened by the Bill: there were nolaws in Charles II's reign that restricted the passing of futurelegislation. It was urged that the Oath of Abjuration could not beobjected to by those who had wholeheartedly sworn the Oath ofAllegiance; the conduct of Catholics in " magnifying, admiring andapplauding all the actions of the French King and his allies " wasa denial of that allegiance which they were by law obliged to give tothe Queen of England. The disloyalty of Catholics, it was main-tained, made the Bill necessary for the " security, quiet and well-being of the public," objects which were " consonant to all lawsheretofore made or that were in force either in the reign of KingCharles or at any time since." The provisions of the Bill againstpilgrimages were declared consistent with the first article of Limerick.Emphasis was laid on the word " or " in the phrase " as are consist-ent with the laws of Ireland or as they did enjoy in the reign ofCharles II." The word " or," it was urged, implied that the Govern-ment had the choice of which alternative to adopt; in Charles II's

Th e Trea tyofL im erick 217

reign there were no laws in favour of Popery and several against it.The Irish Commons were very ready to salve their consciences byarguments of this kind. They were determined to pass the Bill,which they regarded as necessary to protect the Protestant regimeduring a war with France in which the sympathies of the Catholicpopulation were strongly suspected of being with the enemy. Butlerand Rice argued in the same way before the Lords, but unlike 1697the Catholic case found no supporters and the Lords passed the Billunanimously.

4. AFTERMATH

What, in effect, was secured by the articles of Limerick was thatthe Williamite confiscation of land was much more restricted thanProtestants had hoped for. Those Jacobites who had submittedprematurely and those who were killed or captured during the war,or who went to France after it, lost their estates. In 1688 Catholicsowned between a quarter and a fifth of the land; the Williamitegovernment confiscated about a third of this area, leaving Catholicsin possession of about fourteen per cent of the country. ThoseCatholics who had held out to the end of the war and were preparedto stay in Ireland secured their estates as a result of the articles ofLimerick or the similar articles of Galway. But they found them-selves subjected to so many restrictions and disabilities as a result ofthe Penal Laws that a great many of the families concerned becameProtestant in the course of the eighteenth century.

The Penal Laws were bitterly resented by Catholics, not only asoppressive in themselves, but as a breach of faith and a contraventionof the Treaty of Limerick. Protestants denied that there had beenany such contravention and made the most of the imprecise phrasingof the articles. They thought their Government had been liberal—•too liberal—in its treatment of open and unrepentant rebels. TheJacobite cause was by no means lost at Limerick. Louis XIVcontinued to support the claims, first of James II, then of James'sson. More than one invasion of Ireland was planned; many of theleading Catholic families had relatives in the French army. Religionand politics were inseparable, and the favourable attitude of Rometo the Jacobite cause was bound to affect the political sympathiesof Irish Catholics. It was natural that the Protestant administrationin Ireland should attempt to secure its position by measures calcul-ated to weaken the influence of Catholics as much as possible. At thesame time the surrender of Limerick had given a real advantage toWilliam and his allies. The concessions offered to Catholics by theTreaty were the outcome of a deliberate policy arrived at after manymonths of negotiation. William and his advisers considered themto be a price worth paying for the advantage that their cause hadgained by the war ending before the winter of 1691. But many ofWilliam's supporters were openly hostile to the agreement and

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strongly opposed to any liberal interpretation of its terms. Fromthe first the Treaty was the subject of dispute; subsequently, itprovided material for one of the great controversies of Irish history.

FOR FURTHER READING

A more detailed account of the Treaty and its effect on the landsettlement, together with a list of sources, is to be found in J. G. Simms,The Williamite Confiscation in Ireland, 1690-1703 (London, 1956).The most important contemporary accounts are A Jacobite Narrative,ed. J. T. Gilbert (Dublin, 1892); C. O'Kelly, Macariae excidium orthe destruction of Cyprus, ed. J. C. O'Callaghan (Dublin, 1850);G. Story, A continuation of the impartial history of the wars ofIreland (London, 1693) [Williamite].


APPENDIX

THE CIVIL ARTICLES OF LIMERICK1

Articles agreed upon the Third Day of October, 1691 betweenthe Right Honourable Sir Charles Porter, Knight, and ThomasConingsby, Esq., Lords Justices of Ireland; and His Excellency theBaron De Ginckle, Lieutenant General, and Commander in Chief ofthe English Army; on the one Part

And the Right Honourable Patrick Earl of Lucan, Piercy ViscountGallmoy, Colonel Nicholas Purcell, Colonel Nicholas Cusack, Sir TobyButler, Colonel Garret Dillon, and Colonel John Brown; on theother Part:

In the behalf of the Irish Inhabitants in the City and County ofLymerick, the Counties of Clare, Kerry, Cork, Sligo and Mayo.

In Consideration of the Surrender of the City of Lymerick andother Agreements made between the said Lieutenant General Ginckle,the Governor of the City of Lymerick, and the Generals of the IrishArmy, bearing date with these Presents, for the Surrender of thesaid City, and Submission of the said Army: It is Agreed, That

IThe Roman Catholicks of this Kingdom shall enjoy such Privileges

in the Exercise of their Religion as are consistent with the Laws ofIreland; or as they did enjoy in the Reign of King Charles the II:And their Majesties, as soon as their Affairs will permit them toSummon a Parliament in this Kingdom, will endeavour to procurethe said Roman Catholicks such farther Security in that particular,as may preserve them from any Disturbance, upon the Account oftheir said Religion.

IIAll the Inhabitants or Residents of Lymerick, or any other

Garrison now in the possession of the Irish, and all Officers andSouldiers, now in Arms, under an}/ Commission of King James, orthose Authorized by him to grant the same in the several Counties ofLymerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, and Mayo, or any of them2; and allthe Commissioned Officers in their Majesties' Quarters, that belong

1. The text is taken from the official version published in Dublin in 1692.2. The missing clause " and all such as are under their protection in the

said counties " should have been included at this point; it was restored byorder of William III, see p. 223 below.

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to the Irish Regiments, now in being, that are Treated with, andwho are not Prisoners of War, or have taken Protection, and whoshall return and submit to their Majesties' obedience, and their andevery of their Heirs, shall hold, possess and enjoy all and everytheir Estates of Free-hold and Inheritance; and all the Rights,Titles and Interests, Privileges and Immunities, which they, andevery or any of them held, enjoyed or were rightfully and lawfullyIntituled to, in the Reign of King Charles the II, or at any time since,by the Laws and Statutes that were in force in the said Reign ofKing Charles the II, and shall be put in possession, by order of theGovernment, of such of them as are in the King's Hands, or theHands of his Tenants, without being put to any suit or troubletherein; and all such Estates shall be freed and discharged from allArrears of Crown-Rents, Quit-Rents, and other publick Chargesincurred and become due since Michaelmas, 1688 to the day of thedate hereof: And all persons comprehended in this Article shall have,hold, and enjo}/' all their Goods and Chattels, real and personal, tothem or any of them belonging, and remaining either in their ownhands, or the hands of any persons whatsoever, in trust for, or forthe use of them, or any of them: and all and every the said persons,of what Profession, Trade, or Calling soever they be~ shall and mayuse, exercise and practise their several and respective Professions,Trades and Callings, as freely as-they did use, exercise and enjoy thesame in the Reign of King Charles the II: Provided, that nothing inthis Article contained be construed to extend to, or restore anyforfeiting person now out of the Kingdom, except what are hereaftercomprized: Provided also, That no Person whatsoever shall have orenjoy the benefit of this Article, that shall neglect or refuse to takethe Oath of Allegiance made by Act of Parliament in England, inthe First Year of the Reign of their present Majesties, when thereuntorequired.

IllAll Merchants, or reputed Merchants of the City of Lymerick, or

of any other Garrison, now possessed by the Irish, or of any Townor Place in the Counties of Clare or Kerry, who are absent beyond theSeas, that have not bore Arms since their Majesties' Declaration inFebruary, 1688,1 shall have the benefit of the Second Article, in thesame manner as if they were present, provided such Merchants, andreputed Merchants, do repair into this Kingdom within the space ofeight months from the date hereof.

IVThe following Officers, viz., Colonel Simon Lutterel, Captain

Rowland White, Maurice Eustace of Yermanstown [Yeomanstown,1. i.e., 1689 by the modern calendar.


Co. Kildare], Chievers of Maystown, commonly called Mount-Leinster, now belonging to the Regiments in the aforesaid Garrisonsand Quarters of the Irish Army, who were beyond the Seas, and sentthither upon affairs of their respective Regiments, or the Army ingeneral, shall have the benefit and advantage of the second Article,provided they return hither within the space of eight months fromthe date of these Presents and submit to their Majesties' Govern-ment, and take the above mentioned Oath.

VThat all and singular, the said persons comprized in the 2d and

3d Articles, shall have a general Pardon of all Attainders, Outlawries,Treasons, Misprisions of Treason, Premunires, Felonies, Trespasses,and other Crimes and Misdemeanors whatsoever, by them, or anyof them committed since the beginning of the Reign of King Jamesthe II: and if any of them are Attainted by Parliament, the LordsJustices, and General, will use their best Endeavours to get the samerepealed by Parliament, and the Outlawries to be reversed Gratis,all but Writing-Clerks' Fees.

VIAnd whereas these present Wars have drawn on great Violences

on both parts, and that if leave were given to the bringing all sortsof private Actions, the Animosities would probably continue, thathave been too long on Foot, and the publick Disturbances last:For the Quieting and Settling therefore of this Kingdom, and avoid-ing those Inconveniences which would be the necessary consequencesof the contrary, no person or persons whatsoever, comprized in theforegoing Articles, shall be Sued, Molested, or Impleaded at the Suitof any Party or Parties whatsoever, for any Trespasses by themcommitted, or for any Arms, Horses, Money, Goods, Chattels,Merchandizes, or Provisions whatsoever, by them seized or taken,during the time of the War. And no person or Persons whatsoever,in the Second or Third Articles comprized, shall be Sued, Impleaded,or made accountable for the Rents or mean Rates of any Lands,Tenements, or Houses by him or them received or enjoyed in thisKingdom, since the beginning of the present War, to the day of theDate hereof, nor for any Waste or Trespass by him or them com-mitted in any such Lands, Tenements, or Houses: And it is alsoagreed, that this Article shall be mutual, and reciprocal, on both sides.

VIIEvery Nobleman and Gentleman, comprized in the said 2d and

3d Article, shall have liberty to Ride with a Sword, and Case of

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Pistols, if they think fit; and keep a Gun in their Houses, for theDefence of the same, or for Fowling.

VIIIThe Inhabitants and Residents in the City of Lymerick, and other

Garrisons, shall be permitted to remove their Goods, Chattels, andProvisions, out of the same, without being viewed and searched, orpaying any manner of Duties, and shall not be compelled to leavethe Houses or Lodgings they now have, for the space of six weeksnext ensuing the Date hereof.

IXThe Oath to be administered to such Roman-Catholicks as submit

to their Majesties' Government, shall be the Oath abovesaid, andno other.

XNo person or persons, who shall at any time hereafter break these

Articles, or any of them, shall thereby make, or cause any otherperson or persons to forfeit or lose the benefit of the same.

XIThe Lords Justices and General do promise to use their utmost

Endeavours, that all the persons comprehended in the above-mentioned Articles, shall be protected and defended from all Arrestsand Executions for Debt or Damage, for the space of eight months,next ensuing the Date hereof.

XIILastly The Lords Justices and General do undertake, that their

Majesties will Ratine these Articles within the space of eight months,or sooner, and use their utmost Endeavours, that the same shall beratified and confirmed in Parliament.

XIIIAnd whereas Colonel John Brown stood indebted to several

Protestants, by Judgments of Record; which appearing to the lateGovernment, the Lord Tyrconnel, and Lord Lucan, took away theEffects the said John Brown had to answer the said Debts, andpromised to clear the said John Brown of the said Debts; whicheffects were taken for the publick use of the Irish, and their Army:


For freeing the said Lord Lucan of his said Engagement, past ontheir publick Account, for Payment of the said Protestants, and forpreventing the mine of the said John Brown, and for satisfaction ofhis Creditors, at the instance of the Lord Lucan, and the rest of thePersons aforesaid, it is agreed, That the said Lords Justices, andthe said Baron de Ginckle, shall intercede with the King andParliament, to have the Estates secured to Roman-Catholicks, byArticles and Capitulation in this Kingdom, charged with, and equallyliable to the payment of so much of the said Debts, as the said LordLucan, upon stating Accompts with the said John Brown, shallcertifie under his Hand, that the Effects taken from the said Brownamount unto; which Accompt is to be stated, and the Ballancecertified by the said Lord Lucan in one and twenty days after theDate hereof:

For the true performance hereof, We have hereunto set our Hands,Char. PorterTho. ConingsbyBar. De Ginckle

Present,ScravemoreH. MaccayT. Talmash

And whereas the said City of Lymerick hath been since, in pursu-ance of the said Articles, surrendered unto Us, Now know ye, that Wehaving considered of the said Articles, are Graciously pleased herebyto declare, that We do for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, as far as inUs lies, Ratifie and Confirm the same, and every Clause, Matter andThing therein contained. And as to such Parts thereof, for whichan Act of Parliament shall be found to be necessary, We shallRecommend the same to be made good by Parliament, and shallgive Our Royal Assent to any Bill or Bills that shall be Passed byOur Two Houses of Parliament to that purpose. And whereas itappears unto Us, that it was agreed between the Parties to the saidArticles, that after the words, Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Mayo,or any of them in the second of the said Articles, the words following:Viz., And all such as are under their Protection in the said Counties,should be inserted, and be part of the said Articles. Which wordshaving been casually omitted by the Writer, the omission v/as notdiscovered till after the said Articles were Signed, but was takennotice of before the second Town was surrendered: And that our saidJustices, and General, or One of them, did promise that the saidClause should be made good, it being within the Intention of theCapitulation, and inserted in the Foul Draught thereof. Our furtherWill and Pleasure is, and We do hereby Ratifie and Confirm thesaid omitted Words, Viz. And all such as are under their Protectionin the said Counties Hereby for Us, Our Heirs and Successors,Ordaining and Declaring, that all and every Person and Personstherein concerned, shall and may have, receive, and enjoy the


Benefit thereof, in such and the same manner, as if the said Wordshad been inserted in their proper place, in the said second Article;any Omission, Defect, or Mistake in the said second Article, in anywise notwithstanding. Provided always, and Our Will and Pleasureis, that these Our Letters Patents shall be Enrolled in Our Court ofChancery in our said Kingdom of Ireland, within the space of oneyear next ensuing. In Witness &. Witness Our Self at Westminster,the twenty fourth day of February, Anno Regni Regis & ReginaeGulielmi & Mariae Quarto1 per Breve de Privato Sigillo.

i. i.e., 1692 by the modern calendar.

17

IRISH CATHOLICS AND THE PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE,

1692-1728

I

rish catholics were deprived of the parliamentary franchise by alaw commonly supposed to have been passed in 1727, but actuallypassed in 1728.1 There has been much misunderstanding of the

developments that led up to this law and of the extent to whichearlier restrictions had already curtailed the voting rights of catholics.Curry said that catholics were excluded from the vote in the firstparliament of Anne's reign.2 In the debate on the catholic relief billof 1793 Speaker Foster claimed that catholics had not voted sincethe revolution of 1688 and that he could prove it from the commons'journals.3 Grattan contested this statement and asserted that catholicsvoted in considerable numbers up to George II's reign.4 Thediscussion of the subject in Porritt's classic work, The unrejormedhouse of commons, is not altogether satisfactory.5 There is thereforeneed for further examination of how far catholics in Ireland exercisedthe parliamentary franchise between the revolution and the act of1728.

The first Irish elections after the revolution were held in 1692.In the preceding year an English act had abolished the oath ofsupremacy in Ireland and had substituted an oath to the effect thatthe doctrine of the pope's deposing power was impious and hereticaland also a declaration against transubstantiation. The act statedthat no one might sit in the Irish parliament without taking the oathand subscribing the declaration, which effectively excluded catholicsfrom membership. The act, however, did not affect the voting rightsof catholics, which were not questioned in any of the electionpetitions of 1692.6

1 1 Geo. II, c. 9, sect. 8. The bill received the royal assent on 6 May1728.

2 J. Curry, Historical and critical review of the civil wars of Ireland,ii. 229 (1793 ed.).

33 Parliamentary register, xiii, 5 E. Porritt, Unreformed house of commons, ii. 218-24.6 3 W. and M., c. 2 (Eng.). The oath of supremacy had similarly

been abolished in England by 1 W. and M., c. 8.

4 4 Ibid., pp. 354-5.


At the next election, in 1695, the question of voters' religion cameup in several petitions, but in no case did the proceedings result ina finding that challenged the voting rights of catholics. In countyKilkenny it was alleged that ' a very great number of poor Irishpapists ' had been made freeholders a few days before the election' contrary to the known laws of the kingdom'. The creation offictitious freeholds became an open scandal, but this particularpetition was allowed to drop without further inquiry.7 Anotherpetition related to Trim, where catholics had been allowed to voteas freemen of the borough. The case was considered by the Irishprivy council, in which the opinion seems to have prevailed that,although burgesses were required to take the oath of supremacy,freemen were not required to do so and that catholics had the rightto vote as freemen.8 Another petitioner in the same year alleged thatin Athenry most of those who had voted for his opponent were ' poorpapists, many of whom could not speak English '. He also failedto obtain satisfaction.9 No more success was gained by a petitionerin 1696 who alleged that his opponent in Askeaton had been electedby voters who were ' papists and by law made incapable for to votefor members to serve in parliament \10 In the following year at aby-election in Trim it was alleged that several persons had votedwho were not free of the borough and ' unqualified to vote, beingIrish papists'. This petition also was rejected.11 Thus, although itwas asserted that the fact of being a catholic should have disqualifieda voter, no support was at this stage given by the commons to suchassertions.

In 1696 an attempt to assassinate William, and the resultingemotion of loyalty and anti-catholicism, led to an English act forthe preservation of the king's person. The act empowered magistratesto require any person to take the oath denying the pope's deposingpower; it also provided that no one who refused to take the oathshould vote in a parliamentary election. The effect of this provisionwas to deprive English catholics of the vote.12 The Irish commonsin 1697 drew up the heads of a similar bill, the draft of which wassent over to England under the Poynings' law procedure. As approved

7 Commons' jn. Ire. (ed. 1796), ii. 61.8 Ibid., ii. 55; P.R.O., State papers, Ireland, 63/357, f. 201 (11 July

1695). The term ' oath of supremacy' was commonly applied to theoath about the pope's deposing power which was substituted for it by3 W. and M., c. 2 (Eng.). 9 Commons jn. Ire., ii. 57.

Ibid., ii. 148. " Ibid., ii. 166. 12 7 and 8 W. Ill, c. 27.10

Irish Catholics and the Franchise, 1692-1728 227

by the English council the bill corresponded closely to the Englishact. It empowered magistrates to exact the oath denying the pope'sdeposing power and provided that those who refused to take thatoath should not be allowed to vote at a parliamentary election. Thecommons passed the bill, although there was a division at the thirdreading (92 in favour, 68 against).13 In the lords the clause aboutthe parliamentary vote was approved at the committee stage, butthe bill as a whole was rejected. Fourteen lords, including ArchbishopNarcissus Marsh, protested against the rejection of the bill. Theymade particular mention of the clause about the vote and expressedthe view that it would have been a ' great security to thegovernment \14 William King, then bishop of Derry, was opposedto the bill on the ground that it required catholics, under penaltyof praemunire, to take an oath that controverted an article of theirfaith. He thought it reasonable to deprive catholics of ' all publictrust, profit or power ', but that it was hard to take away men'sestates, liberties or lives merely because they differed in sentimentsof religion. He told the archbishop of Canterbury that mostprotestants were disgusted by the bill and that even those whosupported it admitted that it was hard to subject ' about 800,000persons without distinction of age, sex or quality to the discretionarypower of two justices of the peace in a matter that reached not onlytheir liberty and property but their very lives '. In expressing theseviews King made no specific reference to the parliamentary vote.15

Two days after the lords had rejected the bill for thepreservation of the king's person the commons considered a reportfrom a joint committee of both houses on an alleged plot for ' theutter extirpation of protestants '. Their findings were expressed in anumber of unanimous resolutions, one of which was that ' theexcluding of papists from having votes for electing any members toserve in parliament in this kingdom is necessary to be made into alaw'. This resolution was cited by Foster in 1793 to support his casethat catholics did not exercise the franchise after 1688. Far fromsupporting Foster's contention it suggests that catholics were votingand that the commons wished to have them legally prevented fromdoing so.16

13 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 224. 14 Lords' jn. Ire., i. 664-5.15 King to Lord Clifford, 20 Nov. 1697; King to Tenison, 30 Nov.

1697 (T.C.D., MS N 3. 1, pp. 134, 136).16 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 230 (29 Nov. 1697); Parliamentary register,

xiii. 336.


The English council included the bill for the preservation of theking's person in the list for the parliamentary session of 1698. Thistime the commons objected to the clause empowering magistrates toimpose the oath denying the pope's deposing power. As underPoynings' law the bill could not be amended by the Irish parliament,it lapsed for that session, the last of William's reign.17 William'sprivy council had evidently no inhibitions about going against theninth article of Limerick, which provided that no oath other thanthe oath of allegiance should be required of Irish catholics.

After the next election, in 1703, there was an interesting petitionfrom Lisburn. The successful candidate was Richard Nutley, whowas supported by the local magnate, Lord Conway. Nutley was atory barrister, who had come over from England as counsel for theIrish forfeiture trustees. The defeated candidate alleged that thecatholic priest charged his people at mass to go to the election andvote for Nutley and that many catholics had accordingly done so.The case was heard at the bar of the house and Nutley's electionwas upheld, a remarkable decision as Nutley's association with theforfeiture trustees would not have commended him to the commons.18

Lisburn was a ' potwalloper ' borough, in which all the inhabitantshad the right of voting.

During 1703 there was much correspondence between the Irishand English governments about the terms of a bill to prevent thegrowth of popery. The draft approved by the English council—which contained no provision restricting the voting rights of catholics—was not put before the Irish parliament as a bill to be passedwithout amendment under the Poynings' law procedure.19 Instead,the text was made available to the Irish commons and used as thebasis of heads of a bill drafted by the commons and then deliveredto the lord lieutenant for further action under Poynings' law.During this process a fresh provision was inserted by the commonswhich affected the voting rights of catholics. It took the form of aclause providing that ' for preventing papists having it in their powerto breed dissension among protestants by voting at elections formembers of parliament' no freeholder, burgess or freeman, beinga catholic, should be allowed to vote unless he took the oaths ofallegiance and abjuration. If he did so he should be allowed to vote' as amply and fully as any protestant'. The bill as approved bythe English council differed in a number of respects from the heads

17 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 253. 1S Ibid., ii. 320, 334.19 Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, p. 185.


drawn up by the Irish commons, but the clause that regulated votingat parliamentary elections was approved without any change ofsubstance and passed into law.20 The oath of abjuration includeda declaration that Anne was rightful and lawful queen and thatJames had no right to the crown. Sir Toby Butler and the othercatholics who protested against the bill made particular referenceto this clause as contravening the ninth article of Limerick, by whichno oath other than the oath of allegiance was to be taken fromcatholics.21 The wording of the clause suggests that, subject to theoath of abjuration being taken, catholics would be allowed to. voteas freemen in boroughs as well as voting as freeholders in counties.

The oath of abjuration was disliked by catholics, who wereprepared to give de facto allegiance to Anne but reluctant to giveher de jure allegiance and deny James's title. But the oath ofabjuration, unlike the oath against the pope's deposing power, wasnot in contravention of any specifically catholic doctrine and wasin fact taken by a number of catholics, although many others refusedto do so. In 1706 lists were prepared of persons who promised tovote at the next election for Sir Donough O'Brien and his son Lucius.Certain names were marked ' papists abjurers ' and the agent puta query in the margin as to whether they had taken the oaths andwhether the oath of abjuration had to be taken immediately beforethe election. In 1708 a list was prepared of persons who promisedto vote for Lucius O'Brien and to take the oath of abjuration ' ifany of the rest of our clergy and function does i t ' . Another list ofthis period contains the names of some seventy-five catholics whohad taken the required oaths.22 The permissibility of taking the oathof abjuration became a controversial question in 1709 when thesecond anti-popery act was passed. This empowered magistrates torequire any male aged sixteen or over to take the oath of abjuration.It also required registered priests to take it, although in 1704 whenpriests were first registered the English council had thought itadvisable to omit this requirement.23 Priests showed great hostilityto the oath; out of 1080 on the register less than forty took it andthey incurred severe condemnation from their brethren in

20 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 375-6; 2 Anne c. 6, sect. 24.21 Curry, Civil wars of Ireland, ii. 397.22 N.L.I., Inchiquin papers. I am grateful to Mr John Ainsworth

for showing me these references.23 8 Anne, c. 3, sect. 22, 23; F. Annesley to Ormond, 29 Jan. 1704

(H.M.C., Ormonde MSS, new series, viii. 50).


consequence.24 It was maintained that it was a sin for a catholicto take the oath and some years later a bundle of indulgences fromthe pope, pardoning persons who had taken the oath, was reportedto have been seized from a priest.25

It is hard to say what effect the requirement of the oath ofabjuration had on the number of catholic voters. No general electiontook place for nearly ten years after the condition was first imposedand during this period the number of genuine freeholders who werecatholics must have markedly declined as the older generation diedoff and were often replaced by heirs who became protestants. But,particularly in the western counties, catholic freeholders were stillquite numerous and there are several references to them taking theoath of abjuration. Thus in 1712 William Brabazon of Lough Maskrepudiated a recantation alleged to have been signed by himself andothers begging the pardon of God and the church for having takenthe oath of abjuration. He declared that he had deliberately takenthe oath and that he thought there was nothing wrong in so doing.26

On the other hand Archbishop King seems to have thought that atthe general election following the requirement of the oath therewould be no catholic voters. He regretted this as likely to favourthe supporters of dissent as against the church party: ' for thoughthe papists hate both yet they expect more moderation from onethan the other \27

When the Irish commons were drafting the anti-popery bill of1709, it was proposed to deprive catholics of the franchise altogether.This gave rise to a debate in the course of which it was argued thatit was unreasonable that so large a section of the population shouldbe bound by laws that were not made by their representatives, thatreligion should be taken into consideration only in so far as itendangered the state and that therefore all who took the oath ofabjuration should be allowed to vote. These suprisingly liberalarguments carried the day and the prohibitory clause was omittedfrom the draft bill sent over to England for approval.28

During the same session the commons gave prolonged considerationto a petition about a by-election in the borough of Irishtown, county

24 W. P. Burke, Irish priests in penal times, p. 50.25 Commons' jn. Ire., iii. 80 (20 Feb. 1716).™ Dublin Gazette, 29 July 1712 (Archiv. Hib., xvi. 17-18).27 King to E. Southwell, 13 March 1711 (N.L.I., MS 2055).28 Addison to Somers, 14 June 1709 (Letters, ed. W. Graham, p. 151)

Addison was secretary to the lord lieutenant.


Kilkenny. The defeated candidate, Agmondisham Cuffe, allegedthat if the returning officer had not disallowed the votes of catholicshe would have been elected. The committee which investigated thecase produced a long report: some of the members maintained thatthe votes of the catholics had rightly been excluded, others thatcatholics should have been allowed to vote. By a majority thecommittee rejected the petition and after a heated debate the samedecision was reached by the house of commons with a vote ofseventy-nine to fifty-two. Addison referred to the case and said itwas treated as a party measure and as a victory for the whigs. Thecase was one of those relied on by Speaker Foster in 1793 in supportof his contention that catholics had no votes at the time.29 Theresults of other election petitions could equally well be cited to provethe opposite. Much depended on the personality and prejudices ofthe returning officer, which often operated to the disadvantage ofcatholics. Another petition of 1709 was that of Nicholas Bourke,Richard Blake, and Thomas Burke. These are the names of threeprominent catholic landholders of county Galway, two of whomhad been admitted to the benefit of the articles of Limerick. Whenthey announced their intention of voting for Lord Dunkellin—Clanricarde's son and heir—the sheriff put them under arrest andthus prevented them from voting.30

The general election of 1713 was of particular interest tocatholics. They were very optimistic about the outcome of thenegotiations that the tory ministry were conducting with the' pretender '. The ministry had decided to have a general electionin Ireland in the hope of getting a tory majority and could counton the whole-hearted support of catholics in their effort. Thedefeated candidate for county Carlow alleged that the catholicgentry of the county had actively supported his opponent ' withoutregard to the laws for preventing papists breeding any dissensionamong protestants at elections'. They had engaged in energeticelectioneering ' by appearing in the field well mounted, well armedand in red coats ' and they had made a number of freeholders forvoting purposes, some of whom were their own liveried servants.This petition remained undisposed of at the end of the session, asdid another petition from Charleville, county Cork, in which it was

^Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 612-14; Addison to Sunderland, 20 June1709 (op. cit., p. 155); Parl. register, xiii. 336. The petition, which waspresented in October 1708, was not decided till June 1709—an unusuallylong time. 30 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 634.


alleged that ' one Teige Croneen, a notorious papist, brought fromKerry upwards of thirty, being papists or late converts, who weremade free of the borough to vote against the petitioner'. But incounty Roscommon a petition was allowed on the ground that thesheriff had admitted the votes of ' several itinerant freeholders, manyof whom were papists or else late conver/ts who never qualifiedthemselves by law to vote at such elections \31

In the first session of George Fs Irish parliament an act waspassed to prevent the fraudulent creation of freeholds. This prescribedthat no catholic freeholder, burgess or freeman should be allowedto vote unless he had taken the oaths of allegiance and abjurationat least six months before the election; he might also be requiredto take them on the election day as well. For voting in contraventionof this provision the penalty was £100, of which half was to go tothe informer.32 There has been considerable misunderstanding ofthis act, which was designed to prevent the creation of voters at thetime of elections. It imposed no new oaths on catholics but providedthat the oaths already required should have been taken at least sixmonths beforehand. Mountmorres gives a very garbled account ofthe act. He says that up to 1715 catholics exercised the franchisewithout any restraint, but that by this act they were required totake the oaths of allegiance and supremacy [sic].3Z Porritt says thatin the debate of 1793 Foster ' quoted the preamble of the act ofGeorge I which made voters liable to the oaths of allegiance andsupremacy'. In fact, Foster quoted the preamble of the act ofGeorge II, not George I, and neither act required the oath ofsupremacy to be taken by voters.34 At the next general election, in1727, it was alleged that the provisions of the act of 1715 had beeninfringed in county Clare and evidence was produced that catholicshad been allowed to vote without strictly complying with theprocedure laid down for taking the oaths.35

In the first session of George II's reign the Irish commonsapproved the heads of a bill for regulating elections. It contained

31 Ibid., ii. 745, 753, 755. 32 2 Geo. I, c. 19, sect. 7.33 Mountmorres, History . . . of the Irish parliament from 1634 to

1666, i. 162(1792)34 Porritt, Unreformed house of commons, p. 219. Curiously enough,

the words ' oath of supremacy' occur in the margin of the 1786edition of the Irish statutes. The words ' oath of abjuration' are inthe text in that edition and in the 1716 copy of the act.

35 Commons' jn. Ire., iii. 534.

Irish Catholics and the Franchise, 1692-1728 233a clause that ' for the better preventing papists from voting inelections ' no papist should be entitled to vote at a parliamentaryelection. No additional oath was prescribed for voters; it was astraight ban on catholics. Catholic historians have incorporated intheir accounts of this legislation the tradition that the clause wasintroduced at a comparatively late stage into a bill that purportedmerely to put a stop to election irregularities: catholics were thustaken by surprise and prevented from making the protests that theywould otherwise have made. Matthew O'Conor suggests that ifcatholics had had an opportunity of bringing the matter to the.noticeof Cardinal Fleury his influence would have saved them fromdisfranchisement. He condemned the proceedings as a miserabletrick, ' such as pickpockets might practise, unworthy of the generosityof highwaymen'. Plowden attributed the initiative to ArchbishopBoulter, whose enthusiasm for the English interest made himparticularly hostile to Irish catholics. Contemporary records do littleto support the tradition of surprise, other than an entry in thecommons' journals that the heads of the bill were amended in someway at the committee stage. The state papers and the correspondenceof Boulter and Swift throw no light on the matter.30

There seems no doubt that Irish catholics would have beendeprived of the franchise long before 1728 if it had not been forthe comparative moderation shown by such men as William King,who were responsible for the rejection of the bills of 1697 and 1698(which followed the English act of 1696 and would have requiredthe oath denying the deposing power of the pope to be taken byvoters in Ireland) and for the modification of the bill of 1709 (whichwould otherwise have excluded catholics from the franchise).37 Thiscomparative moderation towards catholics was a characteristic ofthe church party, whose attitude was influenced by the fact thatthe extremer opponents of the catholics were supporters of thedissenters and in favour of removing the sacramental test.

It is hard to estimate the significance of the loss of the franchisein 1728. The number of catholics who were genuine freeholders—that is, holders of land in fee or of substantial leases for lives etc.—had greatly declined by that date. There were still a good manyof them in the western counties and their influence must have been

36 M. O'Conor, History of the Irish catholics, pp. 200-202 (1813);F. Plowden, Historical review of the state of Ireland, i. 263-9 (1803);Commons' jn. Ire., iii. 522. 37 See above, 227, 230.


appreciable in the county elections. In the boroughs, although therewas no legal bar on catholics being freemen and thus eligible forthe parliamentary—but not the civic—franchise, not many catholicsof independent status can in practice have been admitted to theprivilege. The control of boroughs was in the hands of protestants,who alone could be office-holders or members of the commoncouncil.38 As is clear from the election petitions, a large number ofcatholics were enfranchised both in the boroughs and in the countiesby the influence of candidates who were anxious to accumulate votes.Matthew O'Conor suggested that catholics were allowed to keep thefranchise for so long because of the interest that the protestant gentryhad in preserving the voting rights of catholics who were likely tosupport them. General elections were regarded as imminent duringmost of Anne's reign (because of the prevailing political tension)and also in the reign of George I (who was elderly and not regardedas a good life). This is said to have dissuaded protestants fromdisfranchising those whose votes might soon be needed. But with theaccession of George II, robust and in his forty-fourth year, the nextgeneral election was, rightly, regarded as a distant prospect and thetime was considered appropriate for the disfranchisement ofcatholics.39

Disfranchisement must have had an adverse effect on the standingand security of catholic landholders and on the economic positionof catholic leaseholders. Burke referred to the tendency of landlordsto grant leases to protestants who could be turned into voters ratherthan to catholics who could not. The precarious position of catholicproprietors must have become even more so when they were deprivedof the possibility of being useful to their protestant neighbours byvoting in the county elections. As Burke put it, ' the taking awayof a vote is the taking away the shield which the subject has, notonly against the oppression of power, but that worst of all oppressions,the persecution of private society and private manners.40

38 The Essex rules of 1672 imposed the oath of supremacy on office-holders in boroughs and on members of the common council, but noton freemen (Irish statutes, ii. 236). Porritt says that catholics wereprevented from being freemen by 4 W. and M., c. 11. No such actexists. The reference seems to be to c. 2, which is not to the point andrefers to the oaths required of protestant foreigners admitted to thefreedom of boroughs (op. cit., ii. 224).

39 M. O'Conor, as above. 40 Burke, Works, iii. 287, 307

18

THE BISHOPS' BANISHMENT ACT

OF 1697 (9 WILL. Ill, c. I)

The first act of the Irish parliamentary session of 1697 providedfor the banishment of all catholic clergy exercising ecclesiasticaljurisdiction and also of all regular clergy. It was the first act

since the treaty of Limerick that directly affected the practice of thecatholic religion in Ireland, and it was something of a paradox that itshould have coincided with the making of peace between William IIIand Louis XIV. In its early stages the bill seems to have beenconfined to the regular clergy, and there is some obscurity about itsextension to bishops and other clerical dignitaries.

The treaty of Limerick ended the war in Ireland, but it did notend the European war. During the following six years the Williamitegovernment and its supporters were periodically alarmed by the threatof a Jacobite invasion of Ireland supported by help from France.They had no doubt where the sympathies of the catholic clergy lay,and on a number of occasions priests were arrested and kept incustody until the crisis was over. There was some conflict of opinionabout what classes of clergy were most dangerous. The acceptedversion was that regulars were the greatest menace. A memorandumdrawn up by a protestant bishop, apparently at the end of 1691,suggested the expulsion of regulars, on the ground that they were a

burden to the kingdom and under no government but that of theirsuperiors. They depend more immediately on the pope's authority andare supported by it against their bishops. They bear a greater swayamongst the people than the secular priests and are more irreconcilableto their majesties' government, and they seem to wish for nothing morethan to be sent away so that they may be supported abroad. Whereverthere is any commotion they are not only privy to it, but foment it.

A sense of episcopal solidarity seems to have led the writer to suggestthat ' if there were any of the Romish bishops now in Ireland, one ofthem salaried in each province with a pension of £100 per annumwould be a good means to gain intelligence and keep the rest of theclergy in order V

1 Cal. S.P. dom., i6gi-2, p. 56.


A different view was taken in another memorandum written aboutthe same time :

the papist hierarchy in all spiritual matters impoverishes the natives,viz., making them pay their dues to them, though they pay the same toour clergy. . . . Proposed that all secular clergy may under severepenalties be banished the realm, pursuant to laws in that case made.The regulars may stay because the secular clergy are turbulent andambitious, every parish priest aspiring to be an archdeacon, then a dean,then a bishop . . . on the other hand the regulars are for the most partharmless, ignorant, poor men, who only preach morality and gather noriches for themselves nor ever did for the pope.2

During crises it was the practice to make arrests of catholic clergy,and particular importance was attached to the securing of regulars.Such a crisis occurred at the end of 1692, when there was an alarmof a threatened French invasion. In January 1693 a governmentcommittee was appointed to consider what should be done withregulars in custody and to report the most easy and effectual way ofsending them out of the kingdom.3 The committee reported that aroyal proclamation of 1673 had required ' all titular popish arch-bishops, bishops . . . and others exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction. . . and all regular priests' to leave by a fixed time. This proclam-ation had proved ineffective and had been supplemented by threefurther proclamations. The committee expressed the opinion that the' great number of popish archbishops, bishops and regular clergy nowin Ireland ' tended to disturbance of the peace and was against thelaw. They recommended expulsion by a similar proclamation, butsuggested that it would be advisable to obtain special orders fromtheir majesties.4 At that time there seem to have been only onearchbishop and one bishop in the country but there seem to havebeen quite a number of regular clergy.5 Most of the bishops were atSt Germain in attendance on James II and did not conceal theirdesire for his restoration. Their letter to the pope, written early in1692, implored him to help James to recover his dominions from theunjust usurper.0 The lord lieutenant forwarded the committee'sreport to England on 23 January 1693 and asked how the king wished

2 Ibid., pp 68-9.3 Cal. S.P. dom., i6g^, pp 6-7.4 Ibid., pp 8-9.5 Archbishop Brenan of Cashel and Bishop Phelan of Ossory.6Spicil. Oss., ii. 304-9.Spicil. Oss., ii. 304-9.Spicil. Oss., ii. 304-9.Spicil. Oss., ii. 304-9.Spicil. Oss., ii. 304-9.

The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 237

the regular clergy to be dealt with. By 17 May he had still receivedno definite orders, and the question seems to have been quietlyshelved.7

One of those who pressed for the expulsion of clergy was AnthonyDopping, bishop of Meath, the strongest figure on the Church ofIreland bench of bishops. In a report on his diocese made to thegovernment on 23 October 1693 he complained of the poor progressof protestantism and proposed as a remedy the banishing of catholicclergy, both regular and secular, ' there being little hope of convertingthe people while they arc suffered in the kingdom '.8 In anothermemorandum he observed : ' it could also be wished that there was anact to banish at least all regulars out of that kingdom. For they,having little to do and being generally men of more learning than theseculars, have more leisure and ability to pervert and seduceprotestants and to be contriving and designing how to increase theirown party and lessen ours '.9

The first step towards the passing of a banishment law was takenin the Irish house of commons on 21 October 1695: 'ordered thatthe committee of laws do prepare heads of a bill to be brought in tobanish all the popish regular clergy by a certain time and to prohibitany popish clergy to come into this kingdom from and afterMichaelmas next \10 No mention was made of bishops or otherdignitaries at this stage. The commons motion got a sympatheticresponse from Lord Deputy Capel, who was a strong whig anddistinguished for his hostility to catholics. Within three days he andhis council had a bill ready for the suppression of monasteries and thebanishment of regulars which was transmitted to England under thePoynings' law procedure.11

Catholics wrere alarmed at this development and sought the inter-vention of William's ally, the Emperor Leopold. They had a valuablefriend at the imperial court in Francis Taafe, fourth earl of Carling-ford, Who was a distinguished soldier who had helped to relieve Viennain 1683 and had recently been made a field-marshal. Carlingfordwrote to Menegatti, the emperor's confessor, to say that the proposalto banish the regular clergy was very harsh, and that the Frenchwould have the excuse to make propaganda in Rome and elsewhere

7 Cal. S.P. dom., i6gs, pp 15, 141. Cal. S.P. dom., i6gs, pp 15, 141.8 Marsh's Library, MS Z 3. 1.4, p. 163.9 Archiv. Hib., xxii, 168.10 Commons' ]n. Ire., ii, 102.nB.M., Add. MS 9715, f. 28.


that England was plotting the abolition of the catholic religion. Theemperor ordered his envoy, Count Auersperg, to take the matter upand remind William of the promises of religious toleration he hadmade and point out to him the danger to the whole alliance thatwould be created by religious persecution in Ireland. The envoy wastold that William was determined to keep his promises to the Irishcatholics. The latter would have observed the partiality that Williamhad for them. He would extend it, with the proviso, ' so far as layin his power'. But he did not know in what respect the resolutionof the Irish house of commons infringed the treaty of Limerick. Itwas pointed out to the envoy that the resolution was based not onlyon the ground that the regular clergy were a danger to the state, butthat the number of monks and nuns in Ireland was a burden on thepeople. The envoy admitted to William's secretary that he had hadinquiries made among Irish catholics and found there was somesubstance in this point. He suggested that the superiors of themonasteries might be warned against allowing excessive numbers ofentrants. He asked that the proposal to banish the regulars shouldnot be laid before the English privy council. This was put to the kingand the bill was not approved for the time being. It was not returnedto Ireland during the parliamentary session of 1695.12

The next session was held in the summer of 1697, wnen peacenegotiations between William and Louis were already in progress.This might have been expected to lessen religious tension, andcatholics had high hopes that the French negotiators would securea promise of toleration for them in the peace settlement. On the otherhand, protestants were in an angry mood as a result of an attempt toassassinate William in 1696. Capel was dead, but catholics had littlehope of toleration from Henri de Ruvigny, earl of Galway, whobecame a lord justice of Ireland in 1697. Lord Galway was aHuguenot who did much to encourage the settlement of Huguenotsin Ireland. His reputation in catholic circles is summed up in a letterin the Vatican archives: ' Lord Galway, one of the rulers in Irelandand a powerful enemy of the catholics, will have to be reckoned with,as he seeks nothing but the destruction of the catholic religion and thepersecution of all who profess it; by so doing he hopes to takevengeance for the expulsion of the French Huguenots and to gratifyhis followers by handing over to them the spoils of the catholics,without which it would be impossible for his supporters to continue

12 O. Klopp, Der Fall des Hauses Stuart, vii, 134-7.

The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 239to reside in Ireland \13 Methuen, the new chancellor of Ireland, hadrationalist leanings and was later to continue a successful diplomaticcareer in Portugal; but he was regarded as ' a virulent promoter ofall the acts which have passed in Ireland to the detriment of thecatholics \14

Under Poynings' law a new parliamentary session had to bestarted with bills approved by the English privy council, and it wasthe practice for these to be apportioned between the two houses of theIrish parliament. The bill entitled ' An act for suppressing all friaries,monasteries, nunneries and other popish convents and for banishingall regulars of the popish clergy out of Ireland ', which had beenblocked in 1695, was resurrected for the session of 1697 and allottedto the Irish house of lords in the first instance. A clause had beenadded to it in England vesting in the crown the revenues of ' guilds,fraternities, chantries and other religious societies for popish andsuperstitious uses \15 The bill had its first reading in the lords on31 July, but when it came up for the second reading on 3 Augustthe house ordered that it should lie on the table, so that no secondreading of it took place.10 Strong objection was taken to the guildsand chantries clause, which was regarded as an attack on the propertyrights of protestants who were in possession of the former guilds andchantries property. The Irish government reported that they wereconvinced that not a single member of either lords or commons wouldvote for the bill while it contained the guilds and chantries clause.The irony was that the whole Irish parliament was eager for thesuppression of the religious orders and for the expulsion of the regulars.Under Poynings' law no amendment of the bill could take place untilit was referred back to England and approved in another form by theEnglish privy council. As it had been decided at last to introduce abill for the ratification of the articles of Limerick, and as this waslikely, even in its truncated form, to be obnoxious to a body ofprotestant opinion, it was desirable from the government point of viewto sweeten the pill with anti-catholic legislation in the form of abanishment bill. The latter was therefore transmitted lo England bythe Irish government with the omission of the guilds and chantriesclause. It appears that at this stage it was widened to include bishopsand other church dignitaries, as the Irish government reported that

13 Coll. Hib., iv, 62.14 Ibid., p. 73.15 Cal. S.P. dom., i6gys p. 250.16 Lords' jn. Ire., i, 599-600.

240 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730it was transmitted ' with some small change in the title as an act ofbanishing all papists exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction and allregulars of the papist clergy \17

This was much more far-reaching and was calculated to affectthe future existence of the church in Ireland much more drasticallythan a law confined to the suppression of houses and the expulsion ofregulars. It is curious that the decision to expel bishops and otherauthorities should apparently have been taken in such a casual way,as a by-product of Irish parliamentary dislike for an irrelevant accre-tion to the original bill. James Vernon, the under-secretary inEngland, did not like the procedure, which he referred to as a ' newway introduced of mending bills by a side wind ', though he admittedthat the Irish government had been given its opportunity by themistake of the English privy council in inserting the guilds andchantries clause.18 It seems clear that the change in the title repre-sented a change in the substance of the bill, which had up to this timebeen opposed by catholics on the ground that it provided for actionagainst the regular clergy, and on that ground alone.

Even before the introduction of the original bill in the Irish houseof lords catholics had become aware of its imminence, and effortswere made to get William's catholic allies to intervene. Hoffmann,the emperor's agent in London, reported that the bill directly affectedreligion and that he had therefore protested about it, but had beentold by the duke of Shrewsbury, the secretary of state concerned, thatnothing could be done.19 The Irish government had also proposedthat a bill should be drafted for encouraging the education ofchildren in the protestant religion.20 Although this did not get beyondthe proposal stage, word of it got out and similar efforts were madefor intervention against it by the catholic powers. The internuncioin Brussels asked Count Auersperg, the imperial envoy to William,to block any measure to educate catholic children as protestants. The

17 Cal. S.P. dom., i6gj, pp 283-4. The bill seems to have been exten-sively redrafted. Apart from its extension to church dignitaries, the newtitle omitted the reference to the suppression of friaries etc., and the actmade no substantive provision for such suppression, though there are twoconsequential references, one to burial in a suppressed monastery and theother to the powers of magistrates to issue warrants for suppression.

18 Vernon to Shrewsbury, 7 Sept. 1697 <(G. P. R. James, Letters illus-trative of the reign of William III, i, 345-6).

19 Hoffmann's report of 20/30 July 1697, cited in Klopp, vii, 470.20 Cal. S.P. dom., 1697, pp 197-8.

The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 241internuncio had heard about the proposal from the Spanish ambass-ador and was asking both the latter and Count Auersperg to investigatethis and also the report that the Irish parliament proposed to banishthe regulars. The internuncio added that the Spanish ambassadorwould raise these matters at the peace congress, which was alreadymeeting at Ryswick: he would speak to the ambassadors of the otherallies on the point as well as to the French envoy, so that there shouldbe general agreement to secure liberty for Irish catholics.21 The ideaof using the peace congress to secure better conditions for catholicshad already been put up to the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda bythe bishop of Elphin, who urged that the catholic powers shouldinstruct their delegates to intervene on behalf of the loyal, faithful andoppressed inhabitants of Ireland.22

Count Auersperg made representations to William's secretaryBlathwayt—who was in Holland with William—but with very littleeffect. Blathwayt fobbed him off with the following letter, dated16 September 1697, N.S. : ' I have represented to the king thecontents of the letter you did me the honour to write about the actsthat are to pass through the Irish parliament. As you know, hismajesty is always mindful of all that his imperial majesty may wishof him. I am ordered to let you know that the act about the regularpriests contains nothing new and is merely what has always beenwished for by the secular clergy of the Roman Catholic church so thatthey may practise their religion in as peaceful a manner as possible,and his majesty has no desire that it should be altered '. Blathwaytadded that William knew nothing of the act for the education ofcatholic children as protestants, but to satisfy the emperor Blathwaythad written to England conveying orders that no such act was to beconsidered without first telling William, who would not permit any-thing to become law in Ireland which might be objected to by hisallies.23

It seems clear from this that Count Auersperg supposed that thebanishment bill affected only regulars and had no idea that itextended to bishops and others in authority. At the time Blathwaytwrote his letter the bill with its new title ' An act for banishing allpapists exercising any ecclesiastical jurisdiction and all regulars of thepopish clergy . . .' was well on its way through the Irish parliament.It had its first reading in the house of lords on 30 August, had its

21 Coll. Hib., iv, 56-7.22 Moran, Spicil. Ossor., ii, 325.23 Ibid., ii, 322; Coll. Hib., iv, 60.


third reading, nem. con., in that house on 3 September; it was thensent to the commons, which gave it its third reading on 10 September,the day on which the treaty of Ryswick was signed. It and other billsreceived the royal assent on 25 September.24 It raised no discussionin Ireland, and its peaceful passage through parliament was in contrastto that of the bill for the ratification of the treaty of Limerick, whichwas the subject of protest by Bishop King and others on the groundthat the title was a fraud and that not a single article had been ratifiedin full.25

Count Auersperg sent a copy of Blathwayt's letter to the inter-nuncio. He hoped there would be no further talk of the educationbill. However, he did not see how he could stop the banishment bill,since the secular clergy had asked for it. He thought it a scandal thatthose who should be solely concerned with the flock which God hadentrusted to them should be fighting among themselves. Auerspergwas inclined to think that the secular clergy did wish to have theregulars banished, but he promised to do what he could to see thatif the act was passed it should not be rigorously enforced. His master,the emperor, had instructed him to help the Irish catholics as muchas possible, and he had no doubt that the expulsion of the regularswould be a cause of grief to many.26

The internuncio viewed the position with comparative equanimity.He was pleased to note that the project for educating catholic childrenas protestants was being held up by William: that project was themost deadly so far aimed at the catholic religion and Auersperg haddone well to make his immediate and effective protest. The banish-ment bill did not appear to present so obvious a threat to the catholicreligion, but the internuncio thought that it would be advisable forAuersperg to continue to protest against it. The removal of thereligious would be playing into the hands of the heretics, who wereafraid of taking violent measures against the church, but tried insteadto undermine the edifice by displacing the stones which kept thebuilding firm and entire: the regular clergy were the headstones,united and bound together; secular clergy were not so closely boundand could be more easily torn apart; the heretics, to conceal their evildesigns, alleged that the secular clergy were petitioning for the removalof the regulars; even if they did so—which was improbable—the

24 Lords' jn. Ire., i, 616, 620, 638; Commons' jn. Ire., ii, 193. Thedates are old style.

25 Lords' jn. Ire., i, 633-7.26 Coll. Hib.,iv, 61.

The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 243seculars could not be allowed to ruin the church for the benefit oftheir own whims and interests; Auersperg was to do all he could toblock any innovation whatever in religious matters in Ireland.

The letter, which was written in Brussels on 29 September 1697,N.S., indicates that the internuncio also was under the impression thatthe question was confined to the banishment of regulars.27 But fromthe letter of an Irish priest in Brussels dated 21 September 1697, N.S.,it appears that there was already information that the bill extendedto the bishops:

It is clear that Mr Secretary Blathwayt's remark in his letter that theact concerning regular priests contains nothing new is only an unjustexcuse made in bad faith. . . . If this act is considered in its full scopewe will find that soon there will be no priests in the kingdom. The actspecifically says that all the bishops, all the seminary priests and theecclesiastical dignitaries as well as all the regulars will be perpetuallybanished under pain of death . . . and as all the bishops will be perpetu-ally banished . . . there will be no more ordinations, and where there areno ordinations there will be no more succession of priests, and by aninfallible rule there will be no more priests to administer the holysacraments nor to assist the faithful in this poor kingdom. It is thereforejust that the king should ensure that the act is not passed into law, asthe banishment of the regulars is against the first and ninth articles ofthe capitulation of Limerick.28

The passage of the bill through the Irish parliament for theexpulsion of ecclesiastical authorities as well as of regulars was thesubject of further representations to Hoffmann, the emperor's residentin London. He protested strongly to the department in Whitehall, asboth secretaries of state were away. He got a discouraging reply,which confined its terms to the regulars and argued that they did notdeserve the emperor's intercession : a Benedictine called Harrison,who was suspected of being concerned in the plot to assassinateWilliam and had a price of £1,000 on his head, had been madegeneral of the order—he had in fact been made prior of the Englishhouse of Benedictines in Paris.

Hoffmann reported to Vienna that there were about a thousandregulars in Ireland and between 4,000 and 5,000 secular priests. He

27 Coll. Hib., iv, 59-60.28 Moran, Spicil. Ossor., ii, 322-3. The act makes no reference to

seminary priests. It is not clear how the ninth article (which providedthat the only oath to be taken by catholics should be the oath of allegi-ance) was involved.


had been assured that the act affected only the regulars who were aburden on the people, and that the seculars themselves wanted theregulars to be removed. However this was contradicted by the follow-ing statement which he had received from the secular clergy :

The secular priests of the Roman Catholic church of the kingdom ofIreland, being advised 'that his Britannic majesty has been informed thatthe act which is to be passed in the Irish parliament to the prejudice ofthe priests of the Roman communion does not affect the secular clergybut only the regulars of the said kingdom, accordingly represent withgreat humility to Mr Hoffmann, resident of his imperial majesty, thatthe said act concerns and affects the said secular priests just as muchas the regulars. For it is stated in this act that no bishop, dean, dignitaryor priest educated in any seminary (who have always been the mainstayof the catholic religion) will be able to stay in Ireland after a certaintime limited by the said act under pain of treason and will not be ableto return under pain of high treason. And after the death of the secularpriests who have parishes or are charged with cure of souls it will not bepermitted to put others in their places, which will bring about the ruinof the Roman Catholic religion. There were at all times in Irelandbishops, vicars general and other dignitaries whom this act is nowdesigned to exclude. And inasmuch as his majesty has been informedthat the secular clergy have wished and do wish the banishment of theregular clergy the said secular clergy declare that they have neverdesired that the said regular clergy should be excluded from the saidkingdom.20

Hoffman hurried from one official to another. They shrugged theirshoulders and said the decision was for the king. Sunderland, the lordchamberlain, argued that penal laws were never strictly enforced, orrather that they were not enforced at all. Hoffmann had alreadyinformed Count Auersperg, who was at the Hague, of the real stateof affairs. Auersperg took the matter up, recalling the promises thatWilliam had made at the beginning of his reign and also drawingattention to the treaty of Limerick. Blathwayt's reply again took thestand that only the regulars were adversely affected : ' the banishmentof the regular priests will relieve the seculars. The former were allagents of France and will work only for our common enemies. Icannot imagine that the succession of secular priests will be forbidden.Ill-informed people have told you otherwise'. Auersperg then triedan approach to Bentinck, who had just brought off the successfulnegotiations with France. He asked Bentinck to consider the badeffect that assent to the banishment bill would have on the emperor

29Klopp, vii, 471-2, 512.Klopp, vii, 471-2, 512.

The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 245and on the other catholic powers. He alluded to William's under-taking to the emperor at the beginning of the alliance and to hispromises to the unfortunate Irish. Bentinck replied that the expulsionof the regulars would not harm the catholic religion, quite thecontrary. Auersperg pointed out that two years previously—in 1695—the emperor's intervention had proved effective and he hoped thatthis would be the case again. Bentinck rejoined: ' if you knew theseregulars better you would not intercede for them'. Auersperg answeredthat the bill was not confined to the regulars but included all personsexercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction : ' you know enough of our religionto understand that where we do not have bishops we can no longerhave priests'. Bentinck countered by saying that some bishops couldbe allowed to travel to Ireland to ordain priests. Auersperg realisedthat nothing further could be done.30 The bill, in fact, had alreadyreceived the royal assent.

Why did William depart from his previous policy of avoidinginterference with the catholic religion and of trying to meet the wishesof his ally the emperor ? Bellesheim, the author of the only large-scalehistory of the catholic church in Ireland so far published, quotesKlopp, the German historian of the Jacobite movement, as relatingthe change in William's attitude to his anger at the arrangement madebetween the French and imperial delegates at Ryswick, and in parti-cular at the fourth article of the second Ryswick treaty, that betweenFrance and the emperor, which provided that there should be a returnto the status quo ante helium with the significant exception that therecent gains by the catholic church were to be retained. This angeris said to have brought out the Calvinist in William.

There were [said Klopp] circumstances in which William succumbedto strange deceitfulness and to the prejudices of his upbringing.Particularly was this so in connection with the treaty of Ryswick. TheFrench ambassadors had with sly calculation at the eleventh hourbrought the notorious clause into the fourth article. Among the non-catholic ambassadors the rumours spread, not without the aid of thoseFrenchmen, that this had been done with the foreknowledge andapproval of the emperor. So there was general excitement, in which forsome days William III also took part. The victory of French cunning,which reckoned on the prejudices of the protestants, was at least for somedays complete. But the consequences of this victory extended evenfurther than French cunning had itself planned. They recoiled heavilyon a wholly unfortunate nation. For during this time that William III

30 Klopp, vii, 472-4.

246 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730was exasperated against everything catholic there reached him at theHague the particularly hateful decisions of the Irish parliament of 1697against the catholics. The imperial envoys, Auersperg and Hoffmann,had for weeks strained every nerve with the English ministers and hadimplored and warned them to consider that these unholy decisions hadnot the king's sanction. They found in the whole body not a voice infavour of the catholics of Ireland. And the great king himself, in hisexasperation over the alleged injustice of which the French ambassadorsat Ryswick were guilty, descended to the point of view of an ordinaryEnglishman of the time. William sanctioned the decisions of theprotestant parliament of Ireland.31

The association that Klopp traced between the sanction given tothe banishment bill and William's anger at the terms of the treatybetween Louis and the emperor is not sustainable. The royal assentwas given to the bill on 25 September, o.s. (i.e. 5 October, N.S.). Thetreaty between Louis and the emperor was signed on 30 October, N.S.,and William's reaction was expressed on the following day. He wasdisturbed at the prospect of a new line-up in Europe and wrote toHeinsius, the Dutch pensionary: ' I have always apprehended areligious war, fearing lest France and Austria should have a secretunderstanding, which is at present but too manifest \32 Although,however, this took place too late to affect the banishment act, it istrue that relations between William and the emperor were much coolerin the summer of 1697 than they had been in 1695. This was partlybecause the war which cemented the interdenominational alliance wascoming to an end. It was also due to the impatience that William feltat the emperor's demands and the consequent delay in the making ofpeace, which eventually led to William's decision to sign the treatywithout his imperial ally. William's entourage could thus count ontheir master's indifference to representations from imperial envoys,and there is no evidence that William himself gave serious attentionto the problem. Ireland had long ceased to interest him otherwisethan as a source of broad acres to bestow on friends and supporters.At the end of October the duke of Bavaria, who was on a visit toWilliam, tried to raise the question of the Irish catholics, but he foundhim evasive : ' I have ', said William, ' to fall in with the wishes of theIrish parliament which is well aware of the turbulent spirit of theregular clergy and has to take measures for the preservation ofpeace \3S

31 A. Bellesheim, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Irla?id, iii, 23-4.32 P. Grimblot, Letters of William III and Louis XIV, i, 130.33 Coll. Hib., iv, 62.

The Bishops' Banishment Act of 1697 247

The question of withholding royal assent after the bill had gonethrough the houses of the Irish parliament never arose. DuringWilliam's absence in Holland the day-to-day administration inEngland was carried on by lords justices, who referred only points ofparticular importance to William in Holland. Before William hadleft England in the spring he had approved the banishment bill in itsoriginal form when the title referred only to the suppression ofmonasteries and the banishment of regulars.34 There is nothing toindicate that it was referred to him again when it took on a new title,and the date on which the amended version was returned to Irelandallowed no time for a reference to Holland. The commission for theroyal assent was signed a few days later, on 17 August, by the lordsjustices a considerable time before the bill was reintroduced inparliament.35

Count Auersperg's handling of the case proved ineffective. Heremained too long under the impression that only regulars were to bebanished, and he undermined his position by his readiness to concedethe force of the argument that seculars would not be unduly worriedby the removal of competitors. When he did take up the question ofecclesiastical dignitaries with Bentinck and point out the cripplingeffect that the want of bishops would have on the church it was toolate. The bill was already law.

To implement the act a census was taken of the catholic clergy ineach county, city and town, distinguishing regulars from seculars. Forthis it was possible to use the administrative machinery set up inconnection with a recently imposed poll tax, which levied a particularrate on persons in Romish orders. The total number of catholic clergyso returned was 872 seculars and 495 regulars, making a total ofI53^7'86 The only return that has survived is that for the diocese ofDublin. It shows that some attempt was made to distinguish priestsexercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is noted that Edmund Murphy,parish priest of St Andrew's, was supposed vicar-general, and thatRussell, parish priest of St John's, was titular dean of St Patrick's;

34 H.M.C., Buccleuch MSS, ii, 485.35 Cal. S.P. dom., i6gy, p. 314.86 W. P. Burke, Irish priests in penal times, pp 120-8; 9 Will. Ill, c. 8,

sect. 4. The figures are taken from Royal Society, Phil, transactions, xxii,521-2, which give area figures as well as totals. Burke's figure for secularsis 892, which is also given by L. F. Renehan, Collections on Irish churchhistory, i, 84.


Dr Cruse, titular archdeacon of Dublin, was said to be living in countyKildare.87

From the beginning of 1698 arrangements were put in hand fortransporting the clergy affected by the act, and a large number ofregulars were given government passages to the continent. The figureswere communicated to the Royal Society as an interesting piece ofstatistics: 153 regulars transported at government cost from Dublin,170 from Galway, 75 from Cork and 26 from Waterford, making atotal of 424.38 The number of regulars who left Ireland appears tohave been greater than that shown in the official census. Mary ofModena observed that about 700 had left, of whom about 400 werein France and the rest in other catholic countries.89 Their financialplight was deplorable and there are many references to their needs.There were only eight bishops in the country when the act was passed.Ossory and Kildare left of their own accord. Only one of the remain-ing six was arrested in 1698, Sleyne of Cork. The rest remained inhiding, though some of them were arrested in later years and therewas a continuing effort on the part of the government to round upmissing bishops.40 Archbishop Comerford of Cashel wrote a melan-choly letter to the pope in August 1698 describing the effect of thebanishment act. He says, however, that ' nevertheless some of ourbrethren have remained in cellars and cisterns, in mountains andcaves'. He himself is ' sustained by the bread of tribulation and thewater of scarcity but, thanks be to God, he has not laid down hisoffice, but performs it and will do so while life lasts \4 1 He kept hisword and, sheltered by the Mathew family, remained at large untilhis death in 1710.42 The banishment of the regulars was much moreeffectively implemented than the banishment of the bishops and otherclergy exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In fact, nothing of conse-quence seems to have happened to secular dignitaries other thanbishops.

The modification of the banishment bill to extend it beyond toregulars to bishops and other dignitaries seems to have been an attempt

37 Marsh's Library, MS Z 3, 1, 19 (1).38 Royal Soc. Phil, trans., xxii, 522. Burke, p. 132, quotes this source,

but appears to have made a mistake in giving 190 as the Galway figure;he gives 424 as the total transported, p. 144. Renehan, p. 84, also gives190 for the Galway figure.

89 Burke, p. 132.40 M. Wall, Penal laws, pp 13-14.41 Moran, Spicil. Ossor., ii, 345-6.42 Wall, p. 15.

The Bishops'Banishment Act of 1697 249

by officials to cripple the catholic church without attracting theattention of William and his allies to the potentialities of the measure.What some protestants hoped for is summed up in the impressions ofan English visitor to Dublin :

Our red-lettered gentlemen were never under such circumstances hereas now. For their bishops and regular clergy are banished by act ofparliament, which makes it death to find any of them returned again.So that now they are wholly depending on the seculars, and every parishis allowed its priest; but when he dies, there being none to ordain a newone, it must remain without; and this will be the state of the wholekingdom in a little time when the present set of priests shall be extinct.43

It was a plausible forecast, but it was not to be realised.

43 John Dunton, Conversation in Ireland, pp 556-7.

249

19

THE CASE OF IRELAND STATED

AFTER the defeat of the Catholic Jacobites by the ProtestantWilliamites in the war that ended with the Treaty of Limerickin 1691, a new phase opened in the Irish parliamentary tra-dition. The series of parliaments that came after the war rep-resented what has been called 'the Protestant nation', in contrastto the Catholic nation that was the predominant element in thePatriot Parliament of 1689. But the Protestant parliaments werefaced with the same problems—Poynings' Law and the appli-cation of English acts of parliament to Ireland. Poynings' Lawgave final drafting power to the executive in England, theking's ministers and the rest of his Privy Council; it did notconcern the English parliament. That parliament was at theheart of the second problem, the growing practice of passinglaws in England for the regulation of Irish affairs. There wereProtestants who reacted to both these situations in exactly thesame way as the Catholics of the Patriot Parliament had done,though for a long time Protestants discreetly ignored theparallel; it would have been distasteful and imprudent toacknowledge the support of Catholic Jacobites in the effort towin constitutional rights for a Protestant parliament. Thesetwo problems continued to be a cause of occasional friction forthe next ninety years, until the inauguration of 'Grattan'sParliament'.

To begin with, the English executive appeared to Protestantsto represent more of a threat than the English parliament. Inthe war against France, which went on for several years afterthe war in Ireland had finished, William III had Catholic allies,the Holy Roman Emperor and others, who pressed him to givefair treatment to Catholics in Ireland and, in particular, toobserve the Treaty of Limerick. In that treaty King Williamhad undertaken to do his best to get the terms ratified by theIrish parliament and to recommend to that parliament that


Catholics should be given such further security as 'may preservethem from any disturbance upon the account of their saidreligion'. Protestants, who had felt themselves humiliated andharried during the Jacobite regime and whose estates had beenthe subject of confiscatory legislation, were in no mood forgranting concessions to Catholics and did not relish the prospectof ratifying the Treaty of Limerick, to say nothing of givingadditional security to Catholics.

In comparison with what was regarded as the pro-Catholicpolicy of the English executive, one act of the English parlia-ment was reassuring to Irish Protestants. Within a few weeksof the Treaty of Limerick that parliament had passed a lawappointing new oaths for Ireland and requiring members ofboth Houses, the Commons and the Lords, to take an oath andmake a declaration that no Catholic could possibly agree to.The declaration, which already applied to the English parlia-ment and continued to do so until 1829, was particularly offen-sive : it repudiated transubstantiation and referred to the in-vocation of the Virgin and the celebration of the Mass asidolatrous and superstitious. For the first time there was a law—and it was an English law—that effectively barred Catholicsfrom either House of the Irish parliament. It remained anintegral part of the constitution of that parliament until theAct of Union of 1800.1

The first of the Protestant parliaments met in the autumn of1692. The great majority of the 300 members of the House ofCommons were landowners. As men of property they naturallyagreed with John Locke's opinion that the preservation ofproperty is the end of government. Their estates had been ac-quired in a series of confiscations from Catholics, and their chiefaim was to ward off any possibility of a Catholic attempt to getthem back. They were a minority in a countryside that, apartfrom Ulster, was overwhelmingly Catholic. They were afraidof the hazards to which the European war might expose them,and above all they were haunted by the spectre of a Stuartrestoration. They wanted security and they thought that it wasto be found in the suppression of Catholics in general andCatholic gentry in particular. They were disturbed by whatthey considered the partiality of the government towardsCatholics and by the quantity of land already given back to

Th e Case of Ireland Stated 253

former owners under the Treaty of Limerick and specialpardons. They expected the Treaty of Limerick to be put beforeparliament for ratification and they were in no mood to agree.Their feeling of insecurity and the bitterness engendered bycivil war made them aggressive and intolerant.

The Parliament of 1692, after a short and stormy session,broke up without ever considering the Treaty of Limerick. Theimmediate point of contention was Poynings' Law; this wasexemplified in the disputed right of the executive to draft amoney-bill without previously consulting the Irish House ofCommons. Most of the government's income was on a per-manent basis, but the balance had to be found from additionaltaxes levied by passing supplemental money-bills from time totime. The government took the view that by Poynings' Lawit was entitled to draw up money-bills, or any other bills, with-out prior consultation and that the Irish parliament must eitheraccept or reject them; it had no right to make amendments orsuggestions. The question was one of principle; in the eyes ofthe English government Ireland was a dependent kingdom. Sotwo money-bills were sent over from London to open the parlia-mentary session.

The Irish House of Commons took exception to this pro-cedure and resolved that they had the sole right to proposeheads of money-bills, that is, the right to choose the ways inwhich they were to be taxed. The sanction that they possessedwas the power of the purse. They were ready to contribute tothe expenses of government if they were allowed to choose themeans of raising money and if attention was paid to theirgrievances. They passed under protest a beer-duty bill, but theyrejected the government bill for a tax on corn 'because it hadnot its rise in this house'. They also rejected a militia bill and amutiny bill, and they began a detailed inquiry into governmentmismanagement. They set up a highly organised system ofcommittees to investigate the details of finance and adminis-tration. Strong words were used about the corruption and in-competence of government officials. The Lord Lieutenant, LordSydney, reported to Whitehall that the House of Commonswere like a company of madmen: 'They talk of freeing them-selves from the yoke of England, of taking away Poynings'Law . . . and twenty other extravagant discourses have been


amongst them.'2 Less than a month after the session had begunhe brought it to an end with a rebuke: their resolutions, hesaid, were contrary to Poynings' Law and encroached on therights of the Crown of England. It was an extraordinary end toa parliament of Protestant colonists who had just been deliveredby the King of England from the loss of their property andtheir privileged position. The rejection of the money-bill of1692 was long remembered and quoted in later conflicts be-tween parliament and the executive.

The tough line adopted by the Irish Commons in 1692 madethe governments of William III and Anne extremely wary intheir handling of later Irish parliaments. The government'sright to send over a money-bill was preserved by the tokenrepetition of the beer-duty bill after each general election.Otherwise the Commons was allowed to choose its own methodof taxation. Its control over the executive was fortified with aresolution that no money should be voted until the Committeeof Public Accounts had scrutinised the revenue and expenditure,and the executive was made accountable for every part of theadministration.

The Commons was also able to turn the government awayfrom its original policy of conciliating Catholics. The formid-able accumulation of penal laws passed from 1695 onwards wasthe price paid to Protestant politicians for their agreement tovote the necessary taxation. The Treaty of Limerick was notbrought forward again until 1697, and was then ratified in somutilated a form as to be hardly recognisable. The guaranteefor the practice of religion on which Catholics had pinned theirhopes was not ratified at all. At the same time, the attemptsmade by Whig administrations in England to secure religioustoleration for Protestant Dissenters in Ireland were regularlyfrustrated at this period. Relations between the Church ofIreland and the Scots Presbyterians in Ulster were very strained,and a majority in the Irish parliament, and in particular in theHouse of Lords, where the bishops were a large element, weredetermined to make no concessions to what was regarded as athreat to the Established Church. Such party politics as therewere turned on this question of toleration for Presbyterians.Whigs were for it; Tories, or the 'Church Party', were againstit.

The Case of Ireland Stated 255While the Irish parliament at this period showed itself a

match for the executive, it had a formidable challenge to meetfrom the English parliament. This took two forms: Englishlegislation, and judgements on appeal in the English House ofLords overruling the Irish House of Lords. Both forms devel-oped in the course of William Ill's reign and provided theoccasion for a celebrated book with the title The Case ofIreland's Being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England,Stated. Its author was William Molyneux, who had since 1692represented Dublin University in the Irish parliament. He be-longed to a family that had been prominent in Irish affairs sincethe sixteenth century. He was an attractive and talented man,of considerable standing in the world of science, a founder ofthe Dublin Philosophical Society, a member of the RoyalSociety of London, and the author of several books. He had anadmiration for John Locke, the philosopher, and they oftencorresponded. He had a particular regard for Locke's TwoTreatises of Government, which taught that there was a com-pact between ruler and ruled and that government should be byconsent of the governed. Locke, as a member of the EnglishBoard of Trade, was concerned about a campaign by Englishcloth-merchants to stop the growing export of Irish woollens toforeign countries. Bills for this purpose were introduced intothe English Commons in 1697. Locke, who had correspondedon the subject with Molyneux, hoped that the Irish parliamentwould itself put a brake on woollen exports and encourage thelinen trade, but it became clear that this would not satisfy theEnglish merchants and that there was a threat of Englishlegislation.3 At the same time there was a clash of appellatejurisdiction between the English and Irish Houses of Lords ina suit between the Bishop of Derry and the London companieswho formed the Irish Society.

These two situations were the background for Molyneux'sbook, which he wrote early in 1698. It had two themes: (1)the historical status of the Irish parliament; (2) representationalgovernment as a human right. For the first theme he could drawon the researches of his father-in-law, Sir William Domville,who had been Attorney-General of Ireland and had collected anumber of legal precedents from medieval times to show thatthe Irish parliament was the sole instrument for passing statute


law applicable to Ireland. Among the documents in Domville'spossession was the medieval treatise on Irish parliamentaryprocedure, Modus Tenendi Parliamenta in Hibernia. This hadbeen published in 1692 by Molyneux's brother-in-law, AnthonyDopping, Bishop of Meath, a fact which suggests that therewas an interest in the Irish parliament as an ancient institutionand that the Protestant colonists regarded themselves as heirsof an earlier tradition. For the wider theme, the rights of man,Molyneux drew heavily on Locke's ideas and incorporatedseveral verbatim (and unacknowledged) quotations from Lockein his own book. At the outset he argued that the cause ofIreland, which he called 'my own poor country', was also thecause of mankind in general.

To find a basis for deciding the relationship between Englandand Ireland Molyneux went back to the Norman Conquest. Hemaintained that Ireland was not conquered by Henry II in anysense that would give the English parliament jurisdiction overit. On the contrary, the Irish kings had voluntarily submittedand in return Henry had made a compact with the Irish peoplethat they should enjoy the same liberties as the people ofEngland. In the seventeenth-century manner Molyneux takes usdown the ages with a wealth of precedents to show that theEnglish parliament never legislated for Ireland until 1641,except in isolated circumstances when representatives fromIreland were brought over to take part in the proceedings. Hegoes on to say that in recent years there had been a number ofoccasions on which the English parliament, in which Irishmenwere not represented, had passed laws for Ireland. He was'sorry to reflect that . . . when the subjects of England havemore strenuously than ever asserted their own rights and theliberty of parliaments it has pleased them to bear harder ontheir poor neighbours'.4 Molyneux argued that a large part ofthe people of Ireland were descendants of those who hadassisted Henry II and later kings to conquer Ireland. Buthis reference to the Irish kings shows that he was taking hisstand as a citizen of Ireland and not merely as an English-man who had brought his civic rights across the sea withhim.

He does not specifically exclude Catholics from the rights ofcitizenship. But his references to them are coloured by the recent

Th e Case of Ireland Sta ted 257

struggle between Jacobites and Williamites. He refers withapproval to the English act of 1691 that imposed on membersof the Irish parliament the requirement of making a declarationagainst Catholic doctrines. He regarded it as a law 'highly inour favour', and argued that voluntary compliance with thisEnglish law did not give the English parliament the right tobind Ireland with other less favourable laws.

Molyneux took his argument on to a wider plane when hedeclared : 'That Ireland should be bound by acts of parliamentmade in England is against reason and the common rights ofall mankind.' All men, he said, were by nature in a state ofequality and so had the right to be freed from laws to whichthey had not consented. Legislation without consent wouldnaturally lead to taxation without consent: 'To tax me withoutconsent is little better, if at all, than downright robbing me.'His argument was based on the right to enjoy representation inthe legislature and he claimed that if the parliament of Englandcould bind Ireland, the people of Ireland ought to have theirrepresentatives in it: "This, I believe, we should be willingenough to embrace, but this is an happiness we can hardly hopefor.'5 English politicians had no intention of admitting Irelandto the privilege of a union with them.

A practical point was made of the uncertainty and.confusioncreated for the Irish citizen by the existence of two parallelparliaments, each claiming to legislate and adjudicate forIreland. This conflict was particularly troublesome in the caseof appeals to the House of Lords, and Molyneux argued thatthe English House had no jurisdiction in Irish cases. The Bishopof Derry's case produced an open rift between the two Housesof Lords. It was followed by other cases of the kind, one ofwhich was to bring about the English Declaratory Act of 1720—the 'Sixth of George I'—which flatly contradicted Molyneux'scontention.

In the closing passage of his book Molyneux referred to theIrish system of representative government as 'this noble gothicconstitution'—an epithet based on the notion of a golden ageof Saxon democracy—and he pleaded for its preservation in anera of absolutism.

Reaction in England to Molyneux's book was uniformlyhostile. A shower of pamphlets expressed opposition to it: An


Answer to Mr. Molyneux; A Vindication of the Parliament ofEngland; The History and Reasons of the Dependency ofIreland. A committee of the English Commons examined thebook in detail and reported the more objectionable passages tothe House, which resolved nem. con. that the book was

of dangerous consequence to the crown and people of Englandby denying the authority of the king and parliament of Englandto bind the kingdom and people of Ireland and the subordinationand dependence that Ireland hath, and ought to have, uponEngland, as being united and annexed to the imperial crown ofthis realm.6

The reasoning inferred that the authority of the imperialCrown of England was to be exercised through the imperialparliament.

The usual ritual of ordering the book to be burned by thecommon hangman was for some reason not included in theresolution, though it is often said that the book was burned.The Commons addressed the King on the danger of the bookand made the point that Molyneux was not speaking for him-self alone, that his 'bold and pernicious assertions' were in linewith the general attitude of the Irish House of Commons. TheKing was asked to punish those who had been guilty of suchconduct and to discourage anything that might lessen thedependence of Ireland upon England. William confined himselfto ordering the Irish government to prevent anything of the sortoccurring in future. Molyneux had raised a constitutional storm,and it is clear that politically conscious people in Ireland wereafraid of the consequences of this rash challenge to the Englishparliament. Their fears were justified, as in the following year(1699) the English parliament passed the law preventing theexport of Irish woollens to foreign parts, and what appearedto be a promising export trade was killed by the most cele-brated instance of Ireland's being bound by English laws. Butby that time poor Molyneux was dead, a victim at the age offorty-two to an incurable kidney disease. His book became theclassic statement of the rights of the Irish parliament, and itreached its tenth edition in 1782, the year in which the Englishparliament at last yielded to Molyneux's contention.7

A modern historian has made a study of Molyneux as one of

The Case of Ireland Stated 259a group of what she has called 'commonwealthmen', a band ofradical thinkers, influenced by Locke, believing in naturalrights, freedom of thought and expression, and government byconsent. Molyneux is seen as a link in the chain that leads tothe American revolution.8 Another link in that chain wasRobert Molesworth, Molyneux's contemporary and fellowmember of parliament, who sat for the county of Dublin.Molesworth had won international notoriety for his attack onthe absolutist military regime in Denmark. He sharedMolyneux's admiration for the so-called gothic constitution, thelegislature consisting of King, Lords and Commons workingtogether, and the executive accountable to the whole body ofthe people.9

Towards the end of William's reign the English House ofCommons asserted itself against the king by taking completecontrol of the estates confiscated from Irish Catholics, withscant regard for the vested interests that Protestants had ac-quired in them. This rivalled the killing of the export tradein woollens as a factor in building up the resentment felt byProtestants in Ireland over the domineering attitude of theEnglish parliament. In the first of Anne's Irish parliaments theHouse of Commons complained to the Queen about the dis-tressed condition of the country and the way in which theconstitution 'hath of late been greatly shaken'. The Queen wasasked either to restore her Irish subjects to a full enjoyment oftheir constitution or else to grant them 'a more firm and strictunion' with her English subjects.10 This suggests that theprimary demand was for freedom from interference with therights of the Irish parliament; if that failed, union was askedfor as a second-best. The Queen's reply was chilly and gave nohope that either request would be granted. On other occasions,stimulated by the negotiations for union between England andScotland, emphasis was laid on union for its own sake: thesurrender of an independent Irish parliament in favour of rep-resentation within a wider and more powerful imperial parlia-ment. The Irish Commons, congratulating the Queen on theScottish union, inserted in their address the prayer that Godmight 'put it in your royal heart to add greater strength andlustre to your crown by a yet more comprehensive union'.11 Butthe English government did not consider that Ireland presented


the problem that had made the Scottish union necessary, andthere was no move on its part to extend the union to Ireland.When the Irish House of Lords continued to press the pointand to hope that the Queen 'will perfect this great work bybringing her kingdom of Ireland also into the union' the LordLieutenant replied that he had no directions from Her Majestyto say anything on the subject.12

Swift contrasted the treatment given to Scotland with thatgiven to Ireland in an allegory which he wrote, but did notpublish, at this time—The Story of the Injured Lady, Being aTrue Picture of Scotch Perfidy, Irish Poverty, and EnglishPartiality. Ireland is the lady, ruined and cast off by a gentleman(who is England) in favour of a rival—an unattractive female'with bad features and a worse complexion', inferior to theinjured lady in appearance and fidelity.13

It was for long to be a grievance with Irish politicians andpublicists that laws affecting Ireland should be passed by aparliament in which there was no Irish representation. But towhat extent was the Irish parliament itself representative ofthose for whom it legislated ? and in particular could it be saidto represent Catholics, who were not able to sit in it? Butalthough from 1692 Catholics could not be members they stillfor some years had the vote, which was not finally taken fromthem until 1728. In the counties all forty-shilling freeholdershad the franchise, and during William's reign a good manyCatholics were therefore entitled to it. In some boroughs thevote was given to freemen, who might include Catholics, andin a few to residents. Catholics used their votes to show prefer-ence for one Protestant candidate over another, and defeatedcandidates often complained about this. In 1704 voters wererequired to take the Oath of Abjuration, that is, to swear thatAnne and not James Stuart was the rightful sovereign. It wasagainst the principles of many Catholics to do so, but somedid and were therefore allowed to vote 'as amply and fully asany Protestant'. In 1709 it was proposed to take away the votefrom Catholics, but a majority of the Commons took the sur-prisingly liberal view that it was unreasonable for them to bebound by laws not made by their representatives; it was pointedout that the same reasoning applied as in the case of objectionsto Ireland being 'cramped by English acts of parliament'.14

The Case of Ireland Stated 261

The force of this logic seems to have weakened by 1728, whenCatholics as such were deprived of the vote.

The Irish parliaments of the late seventeenth and earlyeighteenth centuries had a strong sense of the rights of citi2ensand the traditions of representative government, but theseprivileges were primarily claimed on behalf of the "Protestantnation', and there was a diminishing regard for the claims ofCatholics to share in them.

Notes1. 3 William and Mary, c. 2 (Eng.).2. Cat. SP Dom., 1695: Addenda, 213.3. H. F. Kearney, 'The Political Background to English Mercantilism,

1695-1700', Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser. XI (1959).4. Molyneux, Case, Dublin 1698, 105.5. Ibid., 97-8.6. Commons' Jn. (Eng.), XII, 331.7. E. R. McC. Dix, 'List of Editions of Molyneux's Case', Irish Book-

lover V (1914), 116-18.8. C. Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonivealthman, Cam-

bridge, Mass. 1959, 137-43.9. Ibid., 88-102; B. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American

Revolution, 1967 Cambridge, Mass., 71-3.10. Commons' Jn. (Ire.) (1798), II, 342.11. Ibid., 494.12. Lords' Jn. (Ire.), II, 247-8.13. Swift, Works, ed. H. Davis, IX, 1-12.14. See above, chapter 17, pp. 225-34; W. Graham, ed., Letters of Joseph

Addison, Oxford 1941, 151.

20

THE MAKING OF A PENAL LAW(2 ANNE, c. 6), 1703-4

The act of 1704 ' to prevent the further growth of popery' was,in Lecky's words, the most notorious of the penal laws. It wasalso the most comprehensive. It covered changes of religion,

the purchase and inheritance of land, education, guardianship,employment, voting and pilgrimages. It was from the first regardedas an important and highly controversial measure. There was a greatdeal of argument about it, and its form changed remarkably duringthe protracted proceedings that took place before it passed into law.Catholics opposed it strenuously at various points in the legislativeprocess. The introduction, at a late stage, of the sacramental testhit dissenters and produced further controversy. There were anumber of unusual features in the treatment of the bill which repayinvestigation of the considerable volume of material relating to it.There are also gaps in the evidence which make it difficult to becertain about such questions as the attitude of the English governmentof the day to penal legislation in Ireland. It is particularly hard todetermine why, and by whom, the sacramental test was introducedinto the bill.1

Early in 1703 the Irish lords justices sent over to England theirproposals for the next parliamentary programme. They includeda bill ' for preventing protestants from turning papists and for anyestate of protestants to descend or come to any papist and to preventpapists from disinheriting protestants '. Proposals for legislation ofthis kind had been considered by the Irish commons in 1697 and1698, but there had been no session of the Irish parliament since1698 and no further steps had been taken. The lords justices

1 The chief primary sources for the history of the bill are thecorrespondence between the English and Irish governments (calendaredin Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4), Commons' jn. Ire., and two manuscriptsfrom the Southwell collection, B.M., Add. MSS 9715, 37,673. Ofsecondary accounts the fullest is to be found in Froude, The Englishin Ireland, i. 329-33, 340-53. The question of the test is discussed inconsiderable detail in Beckett, Protestant dissent in Ireland, pp. 43-52.


suggested to the secretary of state, the earl of Nottingham, that thebill would be more acceptable to an Irish parliament if it wentfurther and prevented catholics from buying or inheriting freeholdproperty.2

No reply to this letter is forthcoming, but shortly after itsreceipt Nottingham sent for Sir Richard Cox, an Irish judge whosoon afterwards became lord chancellor: the queen was consideringmany Irish matters on which he might be useful.3 Ormonde wasthen appointed lord lieutenant and ordered to transmit some billsas the. necessary preliminary to the summoning of parliament. Assoon as he reached Ireland he appointed a committee of his councilto draw up heads of bills. The fact that there had already beendiscussions with England on the subject was concealed from thecouncil to give it the satisfaction of thinking that it was taking theinitiative in drafting legislation. The resulting draft was transmittedto England in June 1703 under the title 'An act to prevent thefurther growth of popery'. In addition to the proposals previouslysubmitted—for preventing protestants turning catholic and preventingcatholics acquiring protestant estates or disinheriting protestants—the bill contained clauses limiting the catholic residents of Limerickand Galway to twenty specially licensed merchants in each town.It was explained that this was a necessary measure as they werestrong towns with a large catholic population and in all rebellionshad proved ' of fatal consequence to the English '. Ormonde thoughtthat the English council would find the Limerick and Galway clauses' hard and inconvenient': he had however been unable to keepthem out of the bill, although he had in other ways made it lesssevere than the draft proposed by his council. The bill at this stagedid not prevent catholics from buying or inheriting property thathad not been in protestant ownership.4

Irish catholics quickly got information that such a bill was beforethe English council and a petition was presented to the queen byLords Fitzwilliam of Merrion and Bellew of Duleek on behalf ofthemselves and other beneficiaries of the articles of Limerick. Thequeen took what seems to have been the unusual step of orderingthat the petitioners should be given a copy of the draft bill and beheard by the English law officers. William Wogan, the Dublinofficial who was trying to steer the bill through the English council,

2B.MV Add. MS 9715, ff. 39-41; Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 161, 253.*CaL S.P. dom., 1702-3, p. 592.4 Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, pp. 5, 24.

The Making of a Penal Law, 1703-4 265

thought that it would be rejected, as the attorney-general consideredthat in certain respects it contravened the articles of Limerick.5

The law officers' objections were sent over to Ireland lor comment.They have not survived but can be deduced from the Irishgovernment's reply. The first: objection related to a clause restrictingthe right of catholics to sell property. In reply it was pointed outthat this was not intended to stop bona fide sales but to preventcatholics from selling in order to deprive their protestant heirs;in such cases provision was made for a court inquiry. The secondobjection, somewhat surprisingly, raised the point that therestrictions on purchase and inheritance applied only to protestantproperty. The Irish government replied that this was intentional:protestants owned nine-tenths of the country and if that positionwas safeguarded the security of Ireland was well on the way to beingrealised; so long as catholics were free to inherit and purchase fromone another they would have no reason to complain; if howeverthe English council wished to apply the English restrictions (whichcompletely prohibited the purchase and inheritance of land bycatholics) the Irish government had no objection to offer. Anothercriticism related to the clauses about Limerick and Galway. TheIrish government urged in reply that they were the strongest townsin Ireland and each of the two sieges of Limerick had cost Englanda year's war and at least half a million of money; catholics hadgot into Limerick and Galway contrary to the act of explanation.At the same time Ormonde's secretary, Edward Southwell, pointedout that the bill represented ' what is here desired '. If it was notapproved by the English council as a measure to be put before theIrish parliament under the Poynings' law procedure, the Irishcommons would itself frame a measure of the kind in the form ofheads of a bill: it would therefore be helpful to know how far theEnglish council would be prepared to go in approving such ameasure.6

The bill was again referred to the English attorney-general withinstructions to draft ' such a bill as may be a reasonable securityto the protestants and satisfactory to the people '.7 No such bill hadbeen drafted by the time the Irish parliament met towards the endof September 1703, and Southwell wrote to Nottingham's under-secretary pressing for information: ' for the commons here are

5Wogan to Edward Southwell, 6 July 1703 (B.M., Add. MS 37,673, f. 3).

6 Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, pp. 55-7. 7 Ibid., p. 69.


resolved to do something of that kind and it will be very necessaryfor us to know what will be agreed in England'. He asked for acopy of the attorney-general's draft as soon as possible.8

As there was no government ' popery bill' before it the Irishcommons approved a motion to bring in the heads of such a bill andinstructed a committee of four to prepare a draft and also to frame abill to prevent catholics from inheriting. The latter bill wouldpresumably have brought Irish law into line with the English lawunder which catholics were disabled from inheriting lands unless theytook the oaths and made the declaration against transubstantiation.9It would thus have gone beyond the original proposal of the Irishgovernment, which was to prevent catholics from inheriting the estatesof protestants but not to bar them from inheritance of other kinds.The commons committee had drawn up the heads of a bill beforea draft had arrived from England, which had been approved bya committee of the English council but had not yet been laid beforethe queen. It was sent in advance because the Irish governmentwere anxious to know what was likely to be approved in England:they could thus try to head the Irish commons off unacceptableproposals. Nottingham drew Southwell's attention to the fact thatthe draft contained ' no clause for disinheriting papists etc.'. Theattorney-general had prepared such a clause but ' though it wasmore moderate . . . . than that came from Ireland, yet even this wasjudged too hard while we are in alliance with princes of that religionand especially while we are pressing particularly the emperor forfavour to his protestant subjects in Hungary and Silesia '.10 Itappears from this that the English government did not at that stageapprove of preventing catholics from inheriting lands from protestants,let alone preventing them from inheriting at all.

A few days later a fresh draft was prepared by the Englishlaw officers which they thought would be to the taste of the Irishgovernment, as it was on the lines of the draft that had been sentover from Ireland.11 According to Nottingham this included clausesproviding that the children of catholics should be educated asprotestants and ' for giving the estates of such as at eighteen do notbecome protestants to the next protestant of their kindred'.Nottingham's account seems to suggest something much more drasticthan anything so far proposed; but apparently the draft referred

8 Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, p. 133.9 Commons3 jn. Ire., ii. 321 (ed. 1798); 7 & 8 Wm III, c. 27, sect. 4.10 Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, p. 151. "Ibid., p. 160.


to the bringing up of catholic orphans as protestants and to theexclusion of catholic heirs from property that had been in protestantownership. The queen did not approve of these clauses, apparentlyfrom consideration of the feelings of her catholic allies, and theywere omitted from the copy sent to Ireland.12

What seems to be a copy of this draft of the English law officers—including the clauses objected to by the queen—is among the StatePapers.13 The curtailed version sent over to Ireland was madeavailable to the Irish commons and much of it was incorporatedverbatim in the heads of the bill approved by the commons.14 Thedraft sent from England contained provisions against inducingprotestants to turn catholic, sending children abroad for education,allowing protestant property to be bought by catholics and regulatingthe residence of catholics in Limerick and Galway. It did not containa clause preventing catholics from being guardians or, apparently,from inheriting lands from protestants.15 The provisions for Limerickand Galway were more moderate than the original proposals of theIrish government. They allowed all catholics who were alreadyresident in the two towns to remain there, subject to entering intoa bond to be loyal to the crown. This was milder than the originalproposal to limit the catholic inhabitants to twenty licensed merchantsin each town, a proposal that the law officers evidently regardedas a violation of the articles.

The preparation in the Irish commons of the heads of the billwas then undertaken by a committee of the whole house, with theinstruction to add clauses for the better discovery of catholic childrenbeing educated abroad, for the prevention of pilgrimages to ' StPatrick's Purgatory and other superstitious places' and for theapplication of gavelkind to the inheritance of estates by catholics.16

Some further amendments were made in committee, of which the12 Ibid., p. 162.13 S.P. Ire., 63/363, f. 115. The summary in Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4,

pp. 182-3, gives the misleading impression that the draft prohibitedcatholics from buying any land; the prohibition was limited to landsheld by protestants.

14 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 373-7. From a comparison of the draft inthe State Papers with the heads of the bill approved by the commonsit can be deduced what was omitted from the version sent over toIreland.

15 The commons' heads have nothing about guardianship and theirreference to the inheritance by catholics of protestant property isworded quite differently from the English draft.

16 Commons3 jn. Ire., ii. 365.


most important were the ban on catholics inheriting from protestantsand the requirement that the oath of abjuration should be takenby voters in a parliamentary election. Otherwise the bill was similarto the draft sent over from England. There were no clauses aboutthe requirements for holding public office. The regulations aboutthe purchase of land applied only to land that had been inprotestant ownership; catholics were still left free to buy land fromother catholics. The great importance that the commons attachedto their proposals was shown in several ways. The heads of the billwere recorded in extenso in the journals—an unusual procedure;instead of deputing a single member to carry the text to the lordlieutenant the whole house came with it, and the speaker deliveredan oration, in the course of which he referred to the efforts ofcatholics to oppose the measure and the great sums of money theyhad raised for the purpose.17

The heads of the bill as framed by the Irish commons now hadto be considered by the Irish and English privy councils. From theearlier proceedings it appeared that the English government wasreluctant to agree to legislation that could be construed as a breachof the articles of Limerick or would be likely to be objected to bycatholic allies or be used by the emperor as an argument to counterallegations that he was ill-treating his own protestant subjects. TheIrish government was anxious not to propose anything that theEnglish government would seriously object to. At the same time itwished to keep the Irish commons in a good humour and had totake into account the strong anti-catholic feeling of the house andits tendency to be critical of the government and awkward over thepassage of government legislation. The protestant gentry felt verysore over the restrictions on the woollen trade and the proceedingsof the forfeiture trustees. They had convinced themselves thatcatholics were being pampered and protestants ill-treated. Therehad been some stormy meetings about supply and the governmenthad had difficulty about getting the commons to agree to heads ofa bill granting two years' revenue, which would avoid the need ofcalling parliament again until 1705. The actual money bill wouldstill have to be got through. The speaker, Alan Broderick, was adifficult man, and he and his supporters were ' industrious to opposeeverything that was for the queen's service \18

The Irish government had therefore strong reasons for notwanting the ' popery bill' to be weakened in the course of its

17 Ibid., p. 385. lsCal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, p. 175.


consideration by the English council. They knew that vigorous effortswould be made by catholics to get the bill thrown out and its fatemust have seemed problematic in view of the attitude adopted upto that point by the English government. The most that the Irishgovernment could reasonably hope for was that the bill should beapproved in the form in which it had left the commons. From amemorandum sent by Edward Southwell to Nottingham it appearsthat the bill was transmitted by the Irish council without anyamendment of consequence. This view is confirmed by the termsof a catholic protest submitted at the time. The points protestedagainst are all in the heads proposed by the commons. A note atthe end of the protest stated that catholics had been informed thatit was proposed to stiffen the bill by a further provision preventingcatholics from purchasing from one another; this would be ' nosmall addition to their misfortunes \19

The bill was transmitted by the Irish council to England on7 December 1703.20 William Wogan, the Dublin official who hadhandled the earlier bill in the summer, was again sent over to seethe draft through the English council. He at once reported that itwould be strongly opposed by the catholics whose solicitor, Mullony,had already put in a petition against it: they would have to beheard but Wogan hoped that the protestant interest would prevail.21

This time the earl of Antrim was joined with Lord Fitzwilliam ofMerrion in protesting against the bill as a violation of public faith.They had both been admitted to the benefits of the articles ofLimerick and protested, on behalf of themselves and other catholicbeneficiaries, that if the bill became law it would prove the entireruin of the catholics and that it was contrary ' as well to the wordsas to the plain intent and meaning' of the articles.22 The protestwas referred to the English law officers. The attorney-general hadbeen difficult over the earlier draft and raised objections to thisone also. He was in a critical mood as he had been offended bythe Irish speaker's remarks about the money raised by catholics tooppose the bill; he took the remarks as a reflection on his own

19P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/363, f. 165; Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, pp.180-1. The catholic protest is calendared ' about October'. As, however,it refers to the recent transmission of the bill for registering popishclergy (which was sent on 16 Dec. 1703), the protest is clearly to bedated in the latter part of Dec. 1703 or in Jan. 1704 while the poperybill was before the English council.

20B.M., Add. MS 9715, f. 43.21B.M., Add. MS 37,673, f. 23. 22B.M, Add. MS 9715, f. 77.

270 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730integrity. Southwell told Ormonde that the bill might be held upbecause the attorney-general was nettled by what the speaker hadsaid; he added that ' the popish agents are very saucy in theirapplications'. At the same time Southwell impressed on Nottinghamhow necessary it was to get the bill through; he pointed out thatthe Irish commons were intent on having it and considered it themost important bill of the session.23

Wogan was instructed to keep in close touch with Lord Coningsby,who was a key figure as he was a member of both privy councils;he had also been one of the principal negotiators of the treaty ofLimerick and could be regarded as an authority on its interpretation.When a committee of the English council went through the bill indetail, Coningsby ' was a stout champion for it and defended everyclause'. The discussions were prolonged and Wogan was pessimisticabout the outcome. At one stage he feared that the gavelkind clausewas ' in a desperate condition '. The deliberations were so protractedboth in committee and in the full council that catholics grew hopefulthat the bill would be defeated. Coffee-house gossips were certainthat it would never pass and protestant gentry in Ireland becamevery uneasy. Ormonde told Nottingham that some of them threatenedto obstruct the money bill if the popery bill was returned with anymaterial alterations. The Irish speaker and his brother, ThomasBroderick, tried hard to show that Ireland was in a state of unrestand that the favour shown by the English government to catholicsand its reluctance to approve the popery bill were responsible forthis state of affairs. However, Coningsby assured Wogan that allwould be well and his forecast proved correct. On 20 January 1704the bill was approved by the English council in a form that wasconsiderably stronger than the draft sent over from Ireland.24 Whatproved to be the most controversial of the additions was thesacramental test, and there has been much argument as to why atest that chiefly affected presbyterians should have been introducedinto a bill to prevent the further growth of popery.

It is remarkable that the English council should so far havechanged its attitude as to strengthen rather than weaken a bill thathad been approved both by the Irish commons and by the Irishcouncil. It is also remarkable how little notice the official

2*H.M.C, Ormonde MSS, N.S. viii. 52; Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4,p. 248.

24B.M., Add. MS 37,673, ff. 25-47; Cal S.P. dom., 1703-4, pp.492, 501.


correspondence took of the changes made in England. In the list ofbills approved by the English council it was noted that the bill toprevent the growth of popery had passed without any alterationexcept for the omission of a clause affecting one individual. FrancisAnnesley wrote to Ormonde how little the popery bill had beenchanged. These opinions were presumably those of men who hadexpected the bill to be weakened and, in their relief that this hadnot happened, paid little attention to the fact that it had beenstrengthened. Ormonde expressed his thanks to Coningsby for thetrouble he had taken in piloting the bill through the English council,but he made no remark about its alteration except to say that therewould be some opposition to the sacramental test.25

Bishop Burnet gave a peculiar account of the handling of thebill in the English council. He said there was strong opposition toit from those who had ' a mind to have a share in the presents 'that were offered by Irish catholics for obstructing it. The pretextrelied on was that while the queen was in alliance with the emperorand solicitous for his protestant subjects it was hardly decent topass so severe a law against catholics; although, to be sure, theemperor knew that Irish catholics were all on the side of Franceand he was not likely to be sympathetic to them. On the other handparliament was sitting in England at the time and might be criticalif the council showed obvious reluctance to approve anti-catholiclegislation. The device adopted was to add the sacramental test,which would hit dissenters and make the bill as a whole seem muchless desirable to those who had been most eager for it. This cunningartifice was defeated by the wisdom of the Irish parliament, whichaccepted the test and passed the bill.26

Burnet's account, though based on allegations current at the time,is not credible. If this had been the attitude of the English council, theywould hardly have strengthened the anti-catholic provisions of the bill.The number of dissenters in the Irish commons was less than a dozenand subsequent attempts to remove the sacramental test were regularlydefeated. The house had recently resolved that the regium donum wasan unnecessary expenditure. There were no grounds forsupposing that the addition of the test would induce the commonsto throw out a popery bill. Burnet added that the privy council's

25B.M., Add. MS 9715, f. 83; H.M.C., Ormonde MSS, N.S. viii. 56;H.M.C. rep. 7, app. p. 769.

26 History of his own times (ed. 1753), iv. 28-9.

272 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730artifice put the Irish commons in such a bad humour that the ' supplybill was clogged and lessened by many clauses added to it ' . Thisshows that Burnet did not understand Poynings' law. In fact, thearguments over supply had taken place when the heads of the billwere being drawn up in the latter part of 1703. The bill itself wentthrough without a hitch in February 1704—the same month inwhich the popery bill was going through the commons.

Defoe produced an interesting pamphlet on the test—The parallel,or persecution of protestants the shortest way to prevent the growthof popery in Ireland. It took the form of an address to the queenfrom her dissenting subjects in Ireland protesting against ' the terribleand, pardon them Madam if they think, undeserved mortification'of being associated with catholics in the bill. Defoe regarded theintroduction of the test as a political manoeuvre connected with theEnglish occasional conformity bill, which was to be supported bythe argument that ' in all nations it has been the practice to excludeall such as are not of the national church from any share in theadministration of public affairs '. He hinted that the test had beenintroduced as the result of an agreement between Archbishop Kingof Dublin and Lord Nottingham. He made great play with afavourable reference to dissenters in King's State of the protestantsunder James II, a book which had been licensed by Nottingham.Defoe deplored the change in King's attitude: the bishop of Derry,a man of moderation, had remembered to the honour of dissentersthe support they had given to the persecuted clergy of the establishedchurch during the Jacobite regime; the archbishop of Dublin, ' grownquite a new man ', was ready to persecute those same dissenters.The Irish government could not disown responsibility: ' if they hadno hand in the contrivance of the clause, if it was sent backwith that clause inserted without the privity or knowledge of anyof the governing party in this kingdom [Ireland] either in churchor state, this may acquit them of ingratitude to the dissenters, butit can never acquit them of being imposed upon ', and in Defoe'sopinion it was discreditable to be imposed on. King himself, writingsome years later, disclaimed responsibility for the insertion of thetest, but once it had become law he resisted any measure for itsremoval or modification.

"King to bishop of Clogher, 8 Feb. 1716 (T.C.D., King corr.).There are many references in King's correspondence to the desirabilityof maintaining the test. Unfortunately the letter book containing lettersfrom April 1703 to August 1704 is missing.


A third account of the proceedings is given in a letter said tohave been sent by Gilbert Dolben to Sir Richard Cox, the Irishlord chancellor. Dolben was at one and the same time a judge inIreland and a member of the English commons. The letter describedthe lengthy consideration of the bill both in the full English counciland in committee; it stated that the text of the bill was in the endunanimously agreed, even though the committee contained membersof different parties. Most of the amendments were in favour of thechurch of Ireland and the noblest of all was the amendment thatrequired the sacramental test to be taken by all office-holders. Thisamendment was said to have been made at the queen's specificdirection; Dolben was charged with the duty of informing Cox ofthis and requesting him to see that Ormonde used his ' utmostinterest' in support of the amendment. The letter is summarisedin Walter Harris's life of Cox and there seems no reason to doubtits authenticity. We need not suppose that the queen took theinitiative in suggesting the amendment. It is much more probablethat Nottingham was responsible and wished to silence criticism byinvoking the queen's name. Cox was a tory in politics and wouldhave been predisposed in favour of the test; he was also one of thetrustees of Ormonde's estate and was an appropriate intermediaryfor a confidential message of this kind. Dolben was also a tory; ashe was the son of an archbishop of York and the nephew of anarchbishop of Canterbury it would have been natural for him tobe in favour of the sacramental test. A couple of months after thishe was made a baronet, which may have been in recognition ofthis political service.28 The letter gives no hint that the introductionof the test was a matter of political tactics. Froude suggests that itmay have been introduced to secure the assent of the bishops andhigh church peers in the Irish lords, referring no doubt to King andothers who had opposed previous anti-catholic bills and had scruplesabout infringing the articles of Limerick. This is possible and isconsistent with King's own statement, which included the remarkthat he was against the bill. But there is nothing in the officialcorrespondence to suggest that any difficulty was expected from thelords.

A possible explanation is that Nottingham—a keen churchmanand high tory—, when faced with Coningsby's determined advocacyof a strong bill and also with the threat of parliamentary trouble

28 Ware, Works (cd. W. Harris), ii. 221-2.

274 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730in Ireland, found it expedient to agree to the anti-catholic provisionsand at the same time saw the opportunity of bringing Ireland intoline with England by inserting the test into the clause that relatedto the holding of public office. It is certainly possible that Defoewas right in suggesting that the promotion of the English occasionalconformity bill—in which Nottingham was a prime mover—wasconnected with the Irish test clause.

In the event there was very little trouble over the remainingstages of the bill. Southwell was able to give Nottingham areassuring report: ' When first the news came of the sacramentaltest being added there was some noise made thereat by the dissentersand some more busy than others endeavoured to try what strengththere might be in the house to favour the taking it out. But theymet so little encouragement and even those gentlemen were sosensible of the great advantages accruing by the bill for suppressingthe popish interest that they have almost declined any further talkabout it and I see nothing to interrupt a good conclusion \29

The important day was 22 February 1704, when the bill wasdebated in a committee of the whole house of commons. Theproceedings began with hearing the catholic case, which was forciblyput by Sir Toby Butler and Sir Stephen Rice, their main argumentbeing that the bill was a breach of the articles of Limerick. Butlerwas broad-minded enough to add a plea for the dissenters and toargue that the test was a poor reward to them for the services theyhad rendered in putting ' a stop to the career of the Irish army *at Derry and Enniskillen. Rice made the point that the bill wouldgo far to justify the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Theirarguments carried no weight with the house. Various speakersargued that the bill was not a breach of the articles: there was nolaw in force in Charles IPs reign to prevent the passing of futurelegislation; this interpretation was supported by the use of the word' or ' in the phrase ' the laws of Ireland or as they did enjoy in thereign of Charles I I ' . It was also argued that the oath of allegiancereferred to in the articles could reasonably be held to extend to theoath of abjuration.

There was no disagreement until the test was reached. That wasdebated for two hours, in the course of which it was argued thatthe clause tended to divide the protestants, which was particularlydangerous when ' we were provoking the papists afresh'. A few

29 Cal. S.P. dom., 1703-4, p. 537.


speakers ' in the height of their resentment were pleased to saythey thought this was added on purpose to hazard the bill'.Allegations are said to have been made that Irish catholics hadpaid £40,000 to get the clause inserted by the English council ' inhopes that when they could not get the bill laid aside in Englandthereby so to clog it that it should not pass here'. Such charges,however, were accompanied by a warning not to lose ' so valuablea sheep' as the popery bill for a ha'porth of tar. Speakers on theother side urged that even in the north more than eighty per centof the gentry were churchmen and that if Ireland was ever to beunited to England the legal position in the two countries would haveto be similar.30 When the clause was put to the vote there were notmore than twenty negatives.31 As a sop to the feelings of dissentersthis vote was followed by another giving leave to bring in heads ofa bill to allow dissenters the same degree of toleration in Irelandthat they enjoyed in England. But no further steps were taken toimplement this resolution.32 A year later a petition was presentedto the commons on behalf of the dissenters praying that a billshould be introduced to enable dissenters to hold public officewithout taking the sacrament according to the rites of the establishedchurch ' contrary to their consciences \33 The house ordered thatthe petition should lie on the table and no action was taken on it.

When the popery bill reached the lords, the catholics againpresented a petition against it and asked for a hearing. Their counselwere heard at the bar of the house by Cox, the chancellor, who thensummarised the arguments to the lords with so much perspicuityand such justice to all parties that he was greeted with generalapplause—or so at least his biographer relates.84 The house thenproceeded to give its unanimous approval to the bill.35

The viceroy's assent quickly followed and the bill passed intolaw on 4 March 1704. It was a landmark in the history of penal

80 An impartial relation of the several arguments of Sir StephenRice, Sir Theobald Butler and Councillor Malone, Dublin, 1704.

31 Cal. S.P. dom., 1703^, pp. 542-3. Plowden alleges that somemembers * who could not altogether reconcile the act to their consciencesby the most disgraceful casuistry affected to clear themselves ofresponsibility by resigning their seats to others of a more pliantdisposition' (Historical review of the state of Ireland, i. 211). This isnot supported by the commons' journals, which record no resignationsduring the period that the bill was before the house.

32 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 401. 33 Ibid., pp. 451-2."Ware , Works, ii. 2212. 85Lords' jn. Ire., ii. 73, 76.


legislation, affecting the catholic gentry, as property owners andas heads of families, much more than any previous laws. Theyshowed considerable ingenuity in evading its provisions, but mostof the loopholes were blocked by the supplementary act of 1709,86which imposed a variety of further restrictions and in particularintroduced the discoverer, who could obtain possession of propertythat was found to have been the subject of transactions designedto defeat the popery laws. From 1709 the penal period began inearnest and there was a steady increase in the number of heirs tolanded estates who decided that conforming to the established churchwas the lesser evil.

36 8 Anne, c. 3.

21

THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1713

THE IRISII PARLIAMENT of 1713 sat for one month only, and produced theminimum of legislation with the maximum of wrangling. 1713 was a year ofgreat political tension both in England and in Ireland. The Tory ministry ofOxford and Bolingbroke had just concluded the Peace of Utrecht and wasobliged by the Triennial Act to face a general election in England. In Irelandthere was no such obligation, but the ministry took the calculated risk ofdissolving the Parliament elected ten years before and summoning a new one.Much thought had been given to this decision. The prospects and proceedingsof the new Irish Parliament were of close concern to the leading politicalfigures in both countries. Its short life is remarkably well documented, andfrequent references to it are to be found in the correspondence of Oxford,Bolingbroke, Shrewsbury, Swift and Archbishop King of Dublin. Detailedaccounts of the election and of the proceedings of the House of Commonswere supplied to Edward Southwell, who had been secretary to the LordLieutenant during both periods of the second Duke of Ormonde's tenure ofthe office.1 There was a spate of pamphlets; the best known of them wasattributed to Dr Patrick Delany, fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and hadthe title 'The long history of a short session of a certain parliament in a certainkingdom'.

In the latter part of Anne's reign the mutual antagonism of Tories andWhigs showed itself in Ireland no less than in England, although conditionsin the two countries were markedly different. The presence in Ireland of largenumbers of Catholics and Presbyterians gave party politics a distinctiveflavour. The question of an agreement between the Tories and the Pretenderhad very different implications for the two countries. Those Protestants inIreland who were most fervent in their support of the Established Church andtheir disapproval of Presbyterians had reason to be apprehensive about aStuart succession, which was eagerly awaited by Catholics, who lookedforward to recovering lost lands.

After the Jacobite war it was commonly said that there were only twoparties in Ireland, Protestants and Papists; but a division had soon appearedamong Protestants on such questions as the interpretation of the articles ofLimerick and the treatment of Dissenters. The division became more markedduring the early part of Anne's reign, when English politics had their effect onthe Irish administration. Ormonde was a Tory choice of Viceroy; Wharton'sGovernment took up an advanced Whig position, strongly in favour ofDissenters and the removal of the test. In 1710 the change of ministry inEngland brought a further increase of political tension in Ireland. Ormondewas reappointed, and much more bite was given to his administration by thearrival of an English barrister as Lord Chancellor. This was Sir Constantine

278 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Phipps, who had won a great reputation as counsel for Dr Sacheverell andhad come to Ireland with the evident determination to pursue a high Toryline and to crush all opposition. By this time it was clear enough who wouldbe hostile to a Tory policy, and Phipps proceeded to organize a purge of theleading Whigs in the administration and the judiciary.

The most important of his victims was Alan Brodrick, who had beenSpeaker of the Commons from the beginning of Anne's reign until he wasappointed Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench just before the changeof ministry. He was now dismissed from this post; he was also removed fromthe Privy Council along with his brother, Thomas Brodrick, and WilliamConolly, an old ally of theirs. Conolly lost his post of Revenue Commissioner.

These changes had their effect on the parliamentary session of 1711, inwhich there was a Whig majority in the Commons and a Whig Speaker—John Forster, the Recorder of Dublin, who had been removed from theAttorney-Generalship. Leading members of the Opposition included ThomasBrodrick, William Conolly and Robert Molesworth.2 Between them they gaveOrmonde's Government a very uncomfortable time. The Commons agreed toadditional duties on ale and other articles for two years, but they threw out animportant Tillage Bill, challenged the appointment of magistrates andinsisted on making the stimulation of revolutionary principles the ground forgranting financial aid to Trinity College, Dublin. There were some very closedivisions and the session came to a stormy end with violent clashes between theLords and the Commons. Ormonde's secretary, Edward Southwell, reportedthat things had come to such a pass that the same Parliament could not beallowed to sit again. Swift told Stella that he had often advised that Parliamentshould be dissolved, even though he had not thought the scoundrels had asmuch courage as they had actually displayed. Ormonde was criticized for hishandling of the situation and Swift took the view that he had been badlyadvised: 'He is governed by fools and has usually much more sense than hisadvisers, but never proceeds by it.'3

Ormonde went over to England and the Duke of Shrewsbury wasconsidered as an alternative. In the meantime Sir Constantine Phipps was theeffective governor of Ireland as the senior Lord Justice. He continued toarouse hostility and suspicion. Much of the hostility related to a dispute overthe election of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, in which Phipps fought hard for aTory alderman against a Whig majority. The political atmosphere was furtherstrained by the dismissal of Marlborough and his replacement by Ormonde;many of the Protestant community in Ireland were Army officers who hadserved under Marlborough; Molesworth's son had saved Marlborough's lifeat Ramillies. Phipps was severely criticized for his action in connexion withthe customary performance of Tamerlane on King William's birthday in 1712;he had ordered the prosecution of a Whig for reading aloud a prologue thatcame out strongly for 'no peace without Spain*. Suspicion of Phipps'sJacobite leanings was aroused by the withdrawal of the prosecution of apublisher who had advertised a Jacobite pamphlet, The memoirs of theChevalier de St George, a name for the Pretender. His penchant for 'newconvert' lawyers also aroused suspicion. Two of them had been appointedQueen's Counsel soon after Phipps's arrival, and he was alleged to rely toomuch on them and on the Catholic lawyer, Sir Toby Butler. A number ofnew converts were also appointed to the Commission of the Peace. Whigsalleged, with much justification, that conversions were generally made for

The Irish Parliament of 1713 279technical and not for spiritual reasons, and that the converts remained alliedin sentiment with the community they had left rather than with the com-munity they had newly joined.4 Nine converts were elected to the 1713Parliament, all in the Tory interest.5 Phipps's actions seemed admirablycalculated to arouse the hostility of colonial Ireland. It is surprising that hegot as much support as he did from members of the established Church, whoimagined that they had more to fear from Presbyterians than from Catholicsand who thought that depreciating William was the best way of appreciatingAnne.

Early in May 1713 the Irish Parliament was dissolved, but no arrangementsfor a new one were announced and there was much speculation as to whethera new one was to be summoned. The greater part of the revenue was on apermanent basis; but during Anne's reign additional duties amounting to alittle over 25 per cent of the permanent revenue had been voted in eachsession of Parliament. These additional duties were to expire at the end of1713 and it would have been normal to hold a meeting of Parliament in thelate summer of that year to vote the duties for another two years. But doubtswere expressed whether a Parliament was necessary; the military establish-ment in Ireland had been below strength and there had been a considerablesurplus of revenue over expenditure for the previous two years. At the endof April, Molesworth was in London and heard that there was no likelihoodof a parliamentary session: it was hoped to keep expenses within the ordinaryrevenue. 'The truth', he added, 'is that they dare not let an Irish Parliamentmeet.' Early in September the Tory Sir Richard Cox was hoping there wouldnot be a new Parliament that year 'for scare of the worst'.6 Cox had been LordChancellor in Ormonde's first Viceroyalty and was now in Brodrick's placeas Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench; he was also a member of thePrivy Council. He was a close associate of Edward Southwell and kept himfully informed of political developments.

In the second week of September it was decided that the Duke of Shrews-bury should be Lord Lieutenant. Shrewsbury had joined the Tories in 1710,but he was not an extremist, and the English ministry hoped that he would bemore successful than Ormonde in managing an Irish Parliament. Bolingbrokewrote to Matthew Prior: 'The sweetness of his temper, the strength of hisunderstanding and the happiness of his address will enable him better thanany man I know to calm the minds of that distracted nation, who from know-ing no distinction but Protestant and Papist are come to be more madlydivided about Whig and Tory, High Church and Low, than even this societyof lunatics to which you and I belong.'7 Shrewsbury's appointment raisedthe spirits of Whigs and lowered those of the more committed Tories. Onthe other hand, Swift, who was in England at this time, had long been infavour of sending Shrewsbury to Ireland: 'He is the first gentleman we haveand of an excellent understanding and capacity for business.' Swift warnedArchbishop King that violent opposition on the part of the Irish Parliamentwould not be tolerated in England, and that the Court would take a firmstand on the principle 'that Her Majesty ought to exert her power to theutmost upon any uneasiness given to herself or her servants.' This was awarning against an attack on Phipps, with whom Swift was also in correspon-dence.8

A question that was to be of considerable importance was the choice ofthe Lord Lieutenant's secretary. In Anne's reign this was a key position. The

280 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730secretary was a member of the Irish Commons and Privy Council, he corres-ponded with the Secretary of State in England, and was responsible for muchof the work of political management. The Whig interest was markedly en-couraged by Shrewsbury's choice of Sir John Stanley of Grangegorman.Stanley was himself a Whig and had family ties with two of the leadingmembers of the opposition, Molesworth and Forster. He had long beensecretary to the Lord Chamberlain, a post that Shrewsbury had held forsome years and continued to hold while he was Lord Lieutenant. Phippswrote anxiously to Bolingbroke and got the discouraging reply: 'I knowvery well Sir John Stanley's relations, acquaintance and habits to be entirelyWhiggish, which I have taken the liberty to tell him are matters of muchprejudice to him and which will oblige him to more than ordinary circum-spection in his behaviour; he has professed to me all that can be asked ofa reasonable man and I hope he will make these professions good'.9

On October io a proclamation was issued for a new Parliament which wasto meet on November 20, and preparations were immediately made for ageneral election. Recent English experience had suggested that the Govern-ment in office had a great advantage in its powers of appointment and in thebacking of all who were on its pay-roll or hoped to be so. Phipps and hissupporters on the Privy Council had not neglected their preparations. It wasgenerally agreed that the sheriffs for 1713 were thoroughly to be relied on tosupport the Tory interest or, as Molesworth put it, they were 'such a crew ofbeggarly knaves that the Tories would have the false returns of such necessarytools while their year of office lasted'.10 Prospects in the constituencies weremethodically studied. Southwell's papers contain two sets of forecasts analys-ing the position in each constituency and suggesting suitable ways of winningTory seats.11 As usual the election was drawn out over several weeks and somereturns had already come in by the time Shrewsbury arrived at the end ofOctober. It had been hoped that his personal influence would turn the scalesin several constituencies and his late arrival was a handicap for the Govern-ment. The Tory line was Queen and Church; they denounced Whigs asrepublicans. Whigs took their stand by the revolution of 1688; they maintainedthat the Tory administration had divided Protestants and encouraged Catho-lics and Jacobites. Leaflets were issued with such titles as A letter to thefreeholders of Ireland or Advice to the electors of the ensuing parliament.Catholics took a great interest in the election and there were many complaintsof the ways in which they assisted the Tory candidates. In County Carlowit was alleged that the Catholic gentry 'interfered in a zealous and mostindustrious way . . . by making several casual freeholders some of whomwere their menial servants in livery and by themselves appearing in the fieldwell mounted, well armed and in red coats managing and seducing free-holders' to influence the election in favour of the Tory candidates. In Charle-ville, County Cork, it was alleged that 'a notorious papist had brought fromKerry upwards of thirty being papists or late converts who were made freeof the borough'.12 Election expenses seem to have been on a modest scale.Cox wrote that Sir Richard Levinge had been hard pressed and that his seathad cost him £200; Cox's own son was elected after a hard fight 'to the tuneof,£i3i'.13

The rowdiest contest was in Dublin, where Forster, the Recorder, wasone of the Whig candidates and where feeling ran high because of theGovernment's interference in the mayoral election. It was usual to hold the

The Irish Parliament of 1713 281poll in the Bluecoat School on the north side of the Liffey. On this occasionthe sheriffs changed the polling to the Tholsel in the heart of the city—thebuilding in which Forster's court was held. The Whigs rapidly occupiedmost of the building and left no room for the supporters of the Tory candi-dates. The latter stormed the place and began to pull down the platformto make room for themselves. This started a riot in which the leading partswere said to have been taken by a servant of Phipps and by James Cotter, aprominent Catholic. The sheriffs called in the military, who were attackedby enraged Tories armed with planks from the dismantled platform. Thetroops fired; one man was killed and several were wounded. Shrewsburyrestored order by proposing that the poll should be held both at the BluecoatSchool and at the Tholsel, with the result that the Tories voted at one andthe Whigs at the other. He also ordered some Catholic chapels to be closed,which earned him the commendation of Whigs. The Tories claimed thatthey had a majority of the voters, but enough of their votes were disallowedto give the victory to the Whig candidates with majorities of about ioo each.Tory claims that the fellows and scholars of Trinity should have votes in thecity on the strength of their college rooms were rejected. So were claims onbehalf of vicars choral, sextons, parish clerks, pensioners, and invalids in theKilmainham hospital.14

In spite of their defeat in Dublin, Tories did better in the country as awhole than they had expected and reckoned that they could count on 180votes in a House of 300. Southwell was provided with a list in which Govern-ment supporters were indicated by vertical, and the opposition by horizontalmarks.15

The first test came with the election of the Speaker. It was the practicefor the Crown to recommend one of the law officers. There had been nocontest for a century, and on that occasion the Crown nominee had beenelected. This time Sir Richard Levinge, the Attorney-General, was nominatedby the Crown and recommended to the Commons by Sir John Stanley, theLord Lieutenant's secretary. William Conolly recommended an Oppositioncandidate, Alan Brodrick. Both were previous Speakers, Levinge in the short-lived Parliament of 1692, Brodrick from 1703 till his appointment as a ChiefJustice in 1710. Brodrick was much the stronger character; he had been athorn in the Government's side during Ormonde's first Viceroyalty, whenhe had acted as leader of the Opposition and had made the most of the strate-gic possibilities of the speakership. It was at the close of his tenure that Swiftquoted the saying 'he was a very sorry Speaker whose single vote was notbetter than fifty common ones'. Levinge was a lawyer rather than a politicianand was, in Swift's words, 'the most timorous man alive'.16 He and Brodrickhad both been over to England to negotiate for the Crown recommendation.Brodrick seems to have been sanguine about his chances, which suggeststhat the Whigs expected a new deal from Shrewsbury.17 Phipps, who had beenresponsible for Brodrick's removal from the Chief Justiceship and the PrivyCouncil, could not have looked forward with any pleasure to having him asSpeaker.

The Crown's decision was delayed until about a fortnight before Parlia-ment was due to meet. Brodrick had been canvassing in the meantime andhad secured promises from a number of members on whom the Governmentcould normally have counted. Archbishop King saw that there was going tobe a clash between the Government and the Opposition on this question, and

282 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730tried to get Brodrick to withdraw. He discussed the matter with some of theleading Whigs, who said they were ready to give up the contest for theSpeakership if their grievances were redressed by the removal of the greatminister, i.e. Phipps, and the settlement of the Dublin city dispute. Theyargued that the objects of a Parliament were to give money and to obtainredress of grievances; if it was to mean only giving money without redressthey were as well without a Parliament. They were clearly not in a conciliatorymood. Neither were the Tories, who turned a deaf ear to King's appeals tosettle the city dispute before Parliament met; they told him they had theHouse of Commons in their pocket and would be justified in all they did.18

When it came to the vote, Brodrick was elected by a majority of four votes—131 to 127. This was a great disappointment to Cox, who reported toSouthwell that about twenty of those on whom they had relied had voted forBrodrick. Southwell's papers include a complete list of those who voted forLevinge and an incomplete list of those who voted for Brodrick. The latter listspecially mentioned General Frederick Hamilton and all his half-pay officers,'naming several of the latter and describing two of them as violent. TheGovernment could normally count on half-pay officers to follow the definiterecommendation of the Lord Lieutenant, and it is a measure of Army feelingagainst the Tory Government that so many of them refused to do so. Boling-broke expressed strong disapproval: 'I hope I am not ill natured', he wrote toStanley, 'but I confess myself extremely tired of that leniency which suffersa fleet and army to declare for a faction against the Crown'.19 Cox thoughtthere was 'a glorious opportunity' of exercising the Crown's prerogative byrefusing to accept Brodrick as Speaker, but it was decided not to take such astep.20

The next trial of strength came with the contest for the Chairman of theCommittee of elections. The government candidate was Anderson Saunders,a Tory lawyer who was one of Southwell's most assiduous correspondents.The Opposition put up John Forster, Recorder of Dublin and a formerSpeaker. Forster was elected by 127 to 121, which was a further blow toCox. He complained that the Whigs had mustered their full strength, whilethe Tories had been slack in attendance and nine or ten of them had actuallyvoted for the Opposition candidate. One of those who voted for Forster wasSir John Stanley, the Lord Lieutenant's secretary; Forster was his niece'shusband. The post was of particular importance, as there were to be manyelection petitions, including one from Forster's own constituency of Dublin.Political rather than judicial considerations decided such petitions and theChairman's influence would count for much.21

The Government's chief object was to get the usual additional dutiesvoted for another two years. Since the revolution the Commons had tried toinsist on their 'sole right' to initiate Money Bills, and the custom had deve-loped of letting the Commons draw up the 'heads' of a Money Bill; theheads were then converted into a regular Bill in the Irish Privy Council fortransmission to England under the Poynings' law procedure. NormallyParliament met early enough to allow this procedure to go through before thelife of the existing taxes came to an end. On this occasion Parliament met muchlater than usual; so a temporary three-months Bill had been prepared by thePrivy Councils. But it was made clear that the Commons could take the usualinitiative for providing supplies beyond that period by framing heads of aMoney Bill.

The Irish Parliament of 1713 283Financial questions were considered on a number of occasions, but parallel

with them debates were held on various controversial subjects, including aproposal to attaint the Pretender and all who supported him. Prolonged dis-cussion of the Dublin election riot ended in a series of resolutions, one of whichwas that Phipps's servant had been 'a chief fomenter of and instrument in' adesign to obstruct the poll. Another debate was held on the withdrawal ofthe prosecution of the publisher of The memoirs of the Chevalier de St George;it was resolved that this had given great encouragement to the papists andother friends of the Pretender, and that the publication was designed toprevent the Hanoverian succession. The Commons found that Phipps hadacted contrary to his duty and contrary to the Protestant interest, and thatan address should be prepared requesting his removal. Two days later thethree-months Supply Bill was passed. At the same time an address to theQueen was voted, praying for the removal of the Chancellor and adding thatthe Commons had every intention of granting further supplies.22

Meanwhile the House of Lords was taking steps to defend Phipps. Theday after the Commons resolution of censure the Lords ordered a man to beprosecuted for having said that the Chancellor was a canary bird, a villain,and that he had set the kingdom together by the ears and ought to be hanged.The Lords further resolved that Phipps had acquitted himself with honour andintegrity. An address to the Queen was voted saying that the Chancellor wasan equal administrator of justice, a true lover of the established Church anda zealous asserter of the prerogative. The Queen was requested not to allowany evil representation against him to make any impression to his disfavouron her royal heart. A dissenting minority of ten, which included ArchbishopKing, protested against these proceedings.23

Cox kept Southwell fully informed of developments. He sai l that if theCommons succeeded in getting rid of Phipps nobody would dare to serve theQueen in opposition to the Whigs. The Tories had the support of more thantwo-thirds of the Lords, two-thirds of the Privy Council, all the judges anda majority of the Commons; but of their Commons supporters nine were inEngland, ten in the country, and others were lukewarm and slack in atten-dance. Southwell and Ormonde were asked to exert their influence at thiscritical time. The Commons were not likely to vote any more money unlessthey had their way over Phipps. Perhaps the Lord Lieutenant might be in-duced to exert himself; much of the blame for what had happened was laidon his secretary, Sir John Stanley.24 Stanley, however, protested that if hehad not been so zealous as to remain in the House of Commons till two inthe morning a much larger number would have voted against the Govern-ment.25

Shrewsbury thought the chief cause of the trouble was the dispute over theLord Mayor and Phipps's insistence on rejecting any Whig candidate. Beforethe session began several of the Whigs had promised him that they would votefor Levinge as Speaker provided the affair of the mayoral election was settled.Shrewsbury had told Lord Oxford that he wished some of Phipps's friends inEngland would make it clear to him that the Crown did not want the disputeto go on. Oxford seems to have had some letters on the subject sent to Phipps,without effect. Swift had already written to Phipps that the best course wouldbe not to trouble the English ministers with this affair, as they would neithersupport him nor pay attention; accounts of the squabble might as well be of alittle boy playing with cherry stones. Shrewsbury regretted that he himself

284 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730had not been able to settle the dispute and save Phipps from the wrath of theCommons. He lamented: 'My temper is so unfit to join with either of theseparties that I hope Her Majesty will recall me and name some other Governormore fitly qualified for this tempestuous station, and who will reside here so asto make himself better obeyed than I have been able to do, even when Isignified Her Majesty's commands; for, it being known I was only to stayhere a few months, I have made the figure of a Viceroy in a play rather thanof one who had the honour of Her Majesty's patent.'26

The Lord Lieutenant felt he was not getting the backing of the Englishministry. The Archbishop of Armagh had died before Parliament met andhe had specially asked that the see should not be filled until the end of thesession. In spite of this, reports came from England that the appointmentwas being given to Thomas Lindsay, Bishop of Raphoe, who was one ofPhipps's most active supporters and who had the influential backing of Swift;these reports in due course were officially confirmed. Shrewsbury saw nohope that the Commons would vote any more money and proposed thatmeasures should be taken to carry on within the permanent revenue; hethought the best way of bringing the Opposition to its senses was to show thatthe Queen could support her Government without it. He decided that therewas no advantage in waiting for the heads of the Money Bill and adjournedParliament a month after it had assembled. He asked Bolingbroke for per-mission to prorogue it if during the recess he found it impossible to bring theparties to a better temper.27

Meanwhile Bolingbroke had come to the conclusion that too much en-couragement had been given to the Whigs and told the Queen that it wasdangerous to let things run on any further. The appointment of Lindsay toArmagh seems to have been designed to show Crown support for Phipps in anattempt to stop the rot. Bolingbroke informed Oxford of what he had toldthe Queen; he added that he saw an opportunity for making up their owndifferences and for giving new strength and new spirit to the ministry bytaking a firmer line in Ireland.28 This was followed by a favourable reply tothe Lords' address in support of Phipps. Swift wrote to King that theOpposition had done itself nothing but harm by its proceedings in theCommons; they only served to convince the Crown and the English ministersthat there 'could be no safety while those people are able to give obstruction. . . neither do we here think it worth our while to be opposed and encourageour enemies only for £70,000 a year, to supply which it may not be hard tofind other expedients'.29

Early in January, Shrewsbury sent for Brodrick, Torster and other Oppo-sition leaders and informed them that Her Majesty was willing to give theman opportunity of doing themselves justice; if, however, there was no agree-ment at the next meeting of Parliament he had orders to dissolve it.30 Accord-ing to a report made to the Vatican, Shrewsbury rebuked the Opposition forhaving attacked Phipps as a Jacobite and for having presumed to meddlewith the succession question, which was properly one for the Parliament ofGreat Britain. Brodrick was said to have replied that the Irish Parliamenthad as absolute a right to legislate for Ireland as the British Parliament hadfor England, and that the Commons were resolved to exercise that right soas to secure the Protestant succession; Shrewsbury answered that the BritishParliament had taken suitable measures to secure the succession and that theIrish Parliament would not be allowed to intervene in matters relating to the

The Irish Parliament of 1713 285succession of the Crown. The Vatican report concluded by stating that theministry was determined to dissolve that turbulent Parliament and wasdissatisfied with the Lord Lieutenant for not having refused to approve theCommons' choice of Brodrick as Speaker.31 Shrewsbury prorogued Parlia-ment and awaited further orders from England. Cox told Southwell that hewas certain that Parliament would be dissolved and that Shrewsbury wouldreturn to England: he had no doubt that the revenue could be made up andthat if Ormonde came over in September he could easily settle that problem.At the beginning of February orders were received from England thatParliament was to be prorogued until August 10, and it was correctly pre-sumed that this meant it would never sit again; before that date Anne wasdead and Parliament automatically dissolved.32

The English ministry seems to have criticized Shrewsbury, who tried tojustify himself to Oxford. It was never his intention, he said, to put theadministration of Ireland under anything but Tory control; but he wasconvinced that Whigs had the majority in the Commons and that they had tobe conciliated to a greater extent than would be the case in England. Hethought a fresh election would return a House no less hostile to Phipps; heregretted that the conduct of the Commons had made it so difficult for theQueen to remove Phipps to a more advantageous post and replace him by asubstitute who would combine devotion to the Church with acceptability tothe Whigs.33

King summed up the situation to Swift and pointed out that politicalconditions in England and Ireland were very different. In England partyconflict was concerned with who should form the ministry and fill Governmentoffices. The real issue in Ireland was the ownership of estates 'which are allclaimed by the forfeiters and nothing can restore them but the Pretender noranything take them from us but bringing him in. . . . Here is the true sourceof the zeal and violence of the Protestants of Ireland. Remove the fear of thePretender and you may lead them like a dog in a string.'34 Whig anxieties onthis score were strengthened by a sudden increase in the number of recruitsfor the Irish regiments in France; recruiting agents were using the Pretenderas a talking-point and promising the men that they would be back within ayear.35

It is not surprising that so many Irish Protestants should have beenhostile to Phipps, who had first come to notice as counsel for Fenwick, theJacobite conspirator against William III, and later as counsel for Dr Sache-verell; the whole career of Phipps and the character of his Irish administrationin particular seemed to show a leaning towards High Churchmanship,Jacobites and Catholics. It is more remarkable that a man of Cox's experienceshould have supported Phipps, but the reason may be found in his dislikeof Phipps's opponents. Cox had for years been opposed to the Brodricks andtheir party and undoubtedly regarded their pro-Dissenter policy as a dan-gerous threat to the Established Church, of which Phipps had constitutedhimself a champion. At the same time, Cox was an Irish Protestant and quitesincere in disclaiming Jacobite leanings. After Anne's death he declared thathe had all along been 'perfectly Hanoverian as to the succession' and that theincome of ^550 he drew from confiscated land was quite enough to accountfor such an attitude; in fact, he did not know any Protestant in Ireland thatwas not Hanoverian. On all other counts he was determined to be anti-Whig tohis dying day; so great was his hatred of their canting, lying and hypocrisy.36

286 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730The Irish Parliament of 1713 was a sadly bungled affair, in which the

Government's plans were frustrated by a policy that oscillated between com-promise and intransigence. Shrewsbury's appointment had been designed tocalm the political atmosphere, but its immediate effect was quite the opposite.The superimposition of Shrewsbury upon Phipps gave the impression of aweakening of Tory policy, of which the Opposition took full advantage. Itappears that Swift had for a considerable time advocated Shrewsbury'sappointment and that the decision was that of Oxford rather than of Boling-broke. The latter had at first agreed that it would be advantageous to have aconciliatory Viceroy, but later concluded that things had got out of hand andthat Phipps must be strongly backed.37 By this time, however, more and moreof the Government's supporters in the Commons had deserted and Phipps'sopponents had become increasingly aggressive. There was no prospect ofregaining a majority for the Government without sacrificing Phipps, forwhich the ministry was not prepared. The only alternative was to do withoutParliament and cut expenditure so as to bring it within the permanentrevenue.

Shrewsbury remained in Ireland until the beginning of June 1714, tryingto keep the peace between the contending factions. The revenue position wasalleviated by orders for the reduction of some regiments on the Irish establish-ment and the suspension of the regium donum to Presbyterian ministers.38Tories thought Shrewsbury half-hearted and his departure was celebratedwith lampoons. Archbishop King, on the other hand, admired his skill incalming political passions and said that his departure was greatly lamentedby most of the Protestants in Ireland. In the Viceroy's absence Phipps,Archbishop Lindsay of Armagh and the old and infirm Archbishop of Tuamwere made Lords Justices. High Toryism was in the ascendant. King wrotegloomily: 'Many hearts melt for fear and many are at their wits' end whatcourse to take; most of figure are leaving this country, many go to Englandand in the meantime papists crowd in upon us.'39 But the Tory ascendancywas not to last long. The Queen's death and the accession of George Ibrought in the Whigs and a complete change in the Irish Government andjudiciary. Archbishop King and the Earl of Kildare replaced Phipps andLindsay as Lords Justices. Molesworth wrote triumphantly to King: 'Thisday our country is delivered from the domination of two tyrants, and in theirstead we have two worthy honourable patriots set over us.'40

1 B.M., Add. MSS. 34, 777; 38, 157.2 For a recent study of Molesworth see C. Robbins, The Eighteenth-century Common-wealthman.

3 P.R.O., S.P. 63/367, f. 200; Swift, Journal to Stella (ed. H. Williams), pp. 364, 414 •4 The Conduct of the Purse of Ireland; the two Queen's Counsel were Garrett Bourke

and Michael Sweeney {Lib. mun. Hib., ii. 77).5 Garrett Bourke, George Browne, Cornelius Callaghan, Darby Egan, Redmond

Everard, Patrick French, Denis Kelly, George Mathew, Charles Plunkett.• H.M.C., Var., viii. 262; B.M., Add. MS. 38, 157, f. 9.7 Bolingbroke, Works, vii. 440.8 Swift, Corr. (ed. F. E. Ball), ii. 79.9 Bolingbroke, op. cit., p. 518; Stanley's correspondence with Bolingbroke is in

T.C.D., MSS S. 3. 11-13.10 H.M.C., Var., viii. 264.11 B.M., Add. MS. 34, 777.12 Commons' jn. Ire. (ed. 1796), ii. 745, 753.13 B.M., Add. MS. 38, 157, ff. 21, 26.14 Ibid., f. 23 ; Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 766; Political state of Great Britain, vi. 356-64.15 B.M., Add. MS. 34, 777, f. 47; ibid., 38, 157, f. 26.

The Irish Parliament of 1713 28716 Swift, Works (ed. T. Scott), vii. 6; Corr., i. 227.17 The long history of a short session, p. 5.18 T.C.D., MS. N. 3. 4, p. 239; Swift, Corr., ii. 100.19 T.C.D., MS. S. 3. 11, pp. 27-29.20 B . M . , A d d . M S . 34, 777 , f. 9 0 ; ibid. , 38, 157, f. 26.21 Ib id . , f. 29.22 Commons' jn. Ire., ii. 7 6 7 - 7 1 .23 Lords' jn. Ire., ii. 436.24 B.M., Add. MS. 38, 157, ff. 34-36.25 T.C.D., MS. S. 3- 11, p. 74-29 H.M.C., Bath MSS., i. 242-4; Swift, Corr., ii. 72.27 P.R.O., S.P. 63/369, f. 45; H.M.C., Bath MSS., i. 242-4.28 H.M.C., Portland MSS., v. 373.29 B.M., Add. MS. 38, 157, f. 45; Swift, Corr., ii. 111.30 Political state of Great Britain, vii. 73.31 Vatican MSS., Inghilterra xxi, ff. 64-65.32 B.M., Add. MS. 38, 157, f- S3-33 H.M.C., Bath MSS., i. 245.34 Swift, Corr., ii. 116.35 B.M., Add. MS. 38, 157, f. 63.36 Ibid., f. 108.37 Bolingbroke, Works, vii. 473, 490; H.M.C., Portland MSS., v. 373.38 Lloyd's newsletter, 29 March 1714; Reid, History of the Presbyterian Church in

Ireland, iii. 116.39 T.C.D., MS. N. 3. 4, pp. 288, 305.40 Molesworth to King, 2 September 1714 (T.C.D., King MSS.).

22

CONNACHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

most remote and the most catholic part of Ireland.These two qualities gave the region a very individual character,and the few travellers who ventured to cross the Shannonhad the sensation of entering another world. This did notapply to two of the live counties—Leitrim and Sligo, whichhad been allotted to the soldiers of the parliamentary armyin the Cromwellian settlement and for this reason were nottypical of the province. The essential Connacht lay beyondthe Shannon in the counties of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon,the greater part of which had been reserved for catholiclandowners in the Cronrvvellian settlement. The result of thisarrangement was to leave the catholic gentry in a muchstronger position in Connacht than in the rest of Ireland. Thisposition remained largely unshaken by the Jacobite war, as thetreaty of Limerick, the terms of the surrender of Galway, andtheir own solidarity protected most of the Connacht landholdersfrom confiscation at the end of the war.

When the eighteenth century began, several hundredcatholic landholders were in occupation of a substantial partof Galway and Mayo and, to a lesser degree, of Roscommon.This situation was a constant source of anxiety to the authorities,who from time to time were alarmed about the prospect of aFrench landing in the west supported by catholic landlordsand catholic peasants. It was said that catholics in Connachtoutnumbered protestants by fifty to one and that in somecounties there were so few protestant freeholders to serve onjuries that the region could scarcely be held to acknowledgethe authority of the government.la

1 This paper was originally delivered in Trinity College, Dublin,on 27 Feb. 1958, as a lecture in the O'Donnell series.

l a Report of the commrs of enquiry into Irish forfeitures, 1699.

onnacht in the eighteenth century1 was regarded as thec

290 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Many of these catholic landholders were descended from

Galway merchants—Blakes, Frenches, Lynches, Martins—whoduring the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had acquiredvast areas in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon from the olderproprietors, such as the Burkes and O'Flahertys. TheO'Flahertys were reduced to a minute fraction of the greattracts they had once held in west Galway, but the Burkes stillhad very extensive possessions. The largest estate in Connachtwas that of the earl of Clanricarde; the ninth earl was himselfa fervent catholic, but as he had been taken prisoner atAughrim he had had to agree to bring up his sons asprotestants, and there were protestant trustees to supervisethe arrangement. Then there were Brownes in Mayo, atthe Neale and at Westport, descended from an Elizabethansurveyor of Connacht whose descendants had become catholicand had fought in the Jacobite army. Other catholics, such asBellews and Plunketts, had been transplanted from elsewherein Cromwell's time and had remained on the Connacht estatesassigned to them. Side by side with this assortment of catholiclandowners were the protestants who had come into Connachtduring the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Binghams,Kyres, Gores, Ormsbys and others, who were concerned touphold the protestant interest and put as much pressure aspossible on catholic families to conform to the establishedchurch.

During the greater part of the eighteenth century the penallaws were a constant menace to catholics. Their influence wasfelt particularly strongly in Connacht, just because there weremore catholic freeholders there than anywhere else. Theresult was that a large proportion of the catholic landowningfamilies changed their allegiance at some time or other duringthe century. The names and dates were recorded in theofficial convert rolls, and show that many families remainedcatholic until the second half of the century. There was asteady drain, which gradually undermined the catholic positionand left a much reduced, but still appreciable, number ofcatholic landowning families that still kept the old faith bythe end of the century. There were various reasons forindividual changes, but most of them were connected with

Connacht in the Eighteenth Century 291property rather than with religious conviction. Probably thechief reason was the wish to keep the estate together insteadof allowing it to be gavelled or divided among a number ofchildren. If the eldest son turned protestant he could inheritthe entire estate, and many of the converts were eldest sons.Family disputes often led to conversions, which would helpthe convert in the lawcourt. Thus Sir Walter Blake's sonbecame a protestant in order to strengthen his position in alawsuit against his father. Families that had made covertmarriage settlements which contravened the penal laws or hadarranged for neighbours to hold property on trust for themwere afraid of protestant discoverers exposing the transactionsand claiming the lands. Timely conversion was often adoptedas the best defence in such cases. Sometimes the heir to anestate was a minor whose guardians had to be protestants anddo their best to bring him up as a protestant. Young JohnBrowne of Westport was an instance.His catholic fatherdied when he was a boy, and his guardians took the precautionof sending him to Oxford to be ' secure from the insinuationsof his popish kindred '.2 After that he took his place inprotestant society, became a member of parliament andeventually got a peerage. Another Browne—Dominick Browneof Castlemacgarret—waited until his father was ninety yearsold before he conformed to the established church in 1754.Robert Martin of Dangan was justifiably suspected of Jacobiteleanings in 1745 and thought it advisable to strengthen hisposition by conforming in that year. A French traveller inConnacht at the end of the century formed the opinion thatmany of those who had conformed had done so in case arelative should turn protestant and claim the estate, whileothers had conformed in order to become members of parliament.Quite a number of the Connacht members belonged to familiesthat had been catholic at the beginning of the century. ThisFrenchman was told a story of the owner of Oranmore incounty Galway who decided to conform and was asked by theclergyman what had led him to see the light. His answer wasdisconcerting and consisted of the one word ' Oranmore \3

2 Synge to Wake, 15 Apr. 1725 (Gilbert coll.).3 [La Tocnaye], Rambles through Ireland (Cork, 1798), ii. 16.


Although the penal laws provided a very strong inducementto alterations of religion there were a number of catholicfamilies, including some that were very well-to-do, which neveraltered their allegiance. In the last decade of the centurythere were still quite a lot of catholic landholders, particularlyin Galway and Mayo. They included Blakes, Frenches, Dalys,Lynches, who were closely related to those branches of theirfamilies that had conformed and had become prominent inthe social and public life of the province. Many protestantfamilies were connected by marriage with catholic families. Inconsequence, relations between the two religions were closerand more friendly among the gentry in Connacht than elsewhere.Some of the wealth of Connacht catholics came from theirconnection with Irish merchants who had businesses in othercountries. For instance, the Bellews of Mountbellew, countyGalway, were connected with the firm of Lynch and Bellew,merchants in Cadiz; George Moore of Moore Hall in countyMayo had made his fortune as a merchant in Alicante. Wolfelone described Galway and Mayo as the two great catholiccounties, which held the cream and flower of the catholicgentry.4

More than anywhere else in Ireland the landholders inConnacht during the eighteenth century belonged to familiesthat had been associated with the province for several centuries.The fact that so many of them were catholic, for at least partof the century, gave them a link with the mass of the people,and there seems to have been less hostility between landlordand tenant than there was in some other parts of Ireland.There was comparatively little absenteeism, and it wasnoticed that many of the gentry spoke Irish, which broughtthem into more direct contact with ordinary people.5 Anobserver commented on the slow provincial accent and thepeculiar singularity of deportment characteristic of the gentrywho had spent most of their lives in Connacht.6 In contrastwith the first half of the nineteenth century, Connacht in theeighteenth century was not overpopulated. In the early part

4 Autobiography (ed. R. B. O'Brien), i. 136.5 E. Wakefield. Account of Ireland, ii. 754.6 J. McParlan, Statistical survey of county Mayo, introd., p. vf.

Connacht in the Eighteenth Century 293

of the century it was remarked how thinly populated many areaswere. Western Connacht had been a very disturbed area inthe seventeenth century and its population had been muchreduced.7 Much of eastern Connacht had been put undergrazing and had not many inhabitants. In 1717 ArchbishopSynge of Tuam noted that the country was very thinly peopled,4 sheep giving very little room for tenants to occupy \& JohnWesley, who visited the region several times, commented in1760 that Connacht in particular had been largely depopulatedby the change to pasture, and that it was believed to havescarcely half the population that it had had eighty years before.9

In the first half of the century many Connacht people musthave enlisted in the Irish regiments on the continent. CharlesO'Conor of Belanagare often received remittances from France,Spain and Germany on behalf of his poorer neighbours.10

Tenants on the Dillon estate supplied recruits for the Dillonregiment in the French service. Eighteenth-century statisticsare not reliable, but they suggest that the population ofConnacht rose a good deal more rapidly in the fifty yearsbefore 1841 than that of Leinster or Munster.11 This waspartly due to immigration. Several thousand Ulster catholicstook refuge in Connacht at the end of the century. LordAltamont settled a number of them round Louisburgh, whichwas founded for the occasion; others were taken by RichardMartin of Ballynahinch.

All through the century there were few roads in Connacht,and the western parts of Galway and Mayo were almostinaccessible. Thomas Molyneux on his well-known visit toRoderick O'Flaherty in 1709 succeeded in getting a few milesalong the coast to the west of Galway town through thestoniest and wildest country he had ever seen.12 Most ofwest Galway remained entirely roadless until the early part

7 R. O'Flaherty, West Connacht (ed. J. Hardiman), p. 414.8 Synge to Wake, 15 Jan. 1717 (Gilbert coll.).9 Journal, iv. 378.10 Memoirs, p. 175.11 E.g. the ratio between Beaufort's estimates (1792) and the T841

census is 1:2*8 for Connacht and 1:1*9 for Munster.12 Ir. Arch. Soc. Misc., i 171.


of the nineteenth century, when a Scottish engineer namedNimmo made the road to Clifden. In Mayo, Erris wasequally inaccessible. Archdeacon Pococke set out in 1752from Newport to the Mullet with a guide and hired horses,and had an adventurous journey through morasses, acrossrivers and over rocky mountains.13 At the turn of the centurythis road to the Mullet was described as Alpine, interceptedby a score of unbridged rivers and without a single humanhabitation over a stretch of at least fifteen miles.14 Theinaccessibility of the region had the advantage that outsiderscould not easily come in and raise rents by their competition.When the nineteenth-century roads were made in west Galwayit was said that Connemara had gone to the devil and thatgood roads only encouraged strangers to outbid the localpeople.15 In the earlier part of the century long stretches ofthe Shannon were unbridged and the river was a considerablebarrier to Connacht traffic. The Grand Canal did not reachthe Shannon until the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Poor communications tended to keep Connacht a placeapart and largely self-sufficient. The houses of many of thegentry were primitive and crudely furnished, and good eatingwas much more common than good housing. Mrs Pendarves,who paid a long visit to Connacht in 1732, remarked that thegentry of the region did not seem to want good houses or morefurniture than was absolutely necessary, but that they madeup for it in eating and drinking. She was astonished to visit athatched cabin and to be told that it belonged to a gentlemanof £1,500 a year, who gave entertainments of twenty dishesof meat.16 A hundred years later, Maria Edgeworth had asimilar experience at the Martins' castle of Ballynahinch—adilapidated affair with doors that stayed neither open nor shut,ceilings and walls splotched with damp, curtainless windows,and a pigstye and dunghill too close for comfort. At thesame time, she had magnificent meals—venison, salmon,

13 Irish tour, pp. 84-9.14 J. McParlan, Statistical survey of county Mayo, pp. 164-5.15 H. Dutton, Statistical survey of county Galway, p. 375.16 M. Delany, Autobiography, i. 350.


lobsters, oysters and game, all well cooked and well served.17

Richard Cumberland, the dramatist, who visited Eyrecourt inthe 1760s noted that its noble owner lived in the style of thecountry, with more hospitality than elegance. A slaughteredox was hung up whole and slices carved from the carcase.18

The plentifulness of provisions was reflected in the prices.Archdeacon Pococke in 1752 thought the Newport ratesremarkably cheap : beef a penny a pound, mutton a pennyfarthing, chickens a penny each and a fat goose for sixpence.He found the peasantry feeding pretty well. In a cabin inwhich he sheltered, the family were dining on potatoes andbuttermilk and oatcakes cooked on the griddle, which theyoffered to him. They were also boiling some goat, but didnot offer him any of that. Instead they said they would get himsome eggs and milk. Their utensils were of wood, mostly ofsolid timber. They used scallop shells for drinking, and hadrushlights dipped in tallow which they melted in a scallop shell.The cabin had clean straw and clean blankets, but the smokewas very troublesome to Pococke till the owner gave him alow seat where he could crouch below the level of the smoke-cloud.

An interesting census taken in the diocese of Elphin in174919 gives some idea of social life at the time. It showsthe name of each householder with his occupation, religion,the number of his children below and above the age of fourteen,and the number of male and female servants living in thehouse. The overwhelming majority of the population werecatholic; protestants were chiefly to be found as servants oremployees of big houses, or sometimes as tenants of protestantlandlords. Parishes without a big house, or in which the locallandlord was a catholic, had virtually no protestants in them.An extraordinary variety of occupations is represented in thecensus. Self-sufficiency, even in small country places, extendedto wigs, stays and gloves. The bigger landlords kept verylarge domestic staffs. Lord Kingsborough had thirty-one menservants and nine women servants; Arthur French of

1T Tour in Connemara, pp. 41-4.18 Memoirs, i. 278.19 In P.R.O.I.

296 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Frenchpark had sixteen men servants and ten women servants.Even a catholic in reduced circumstances such as O'Conor ofBelanagare had four servants living in as well as fivemarried couples living in adjacent cottages who werereturned as servants. Tenant farmers had one to threeservants. Goldsmith's uncle—a clergyman passing rich onforty pounds a year—had four men and two women to lookafter himself and one child. The majority of the people werelabourers or cottiers, with a sprinkling of weavers, shepherds,tradesmen and artisans. According to the census families weresmall, not much more than two children in a family on anaverage.

In Roscommon and the eastern part of Galway and Mayosheep raising was the staple form of agriculture. The Octoberfair at Ballinasloe was the great event, at which round about70,000 sheep were sold. Much land was taken on lease bymiddlemen—largely catholics—who sublet at double the rentsthey paid themselves. Some of these middlemen, such as theO'Malleys and O'Flahertys, leased lands that had formerlybelonged to their ancestors. Until the population began topress on the land available, the peasants do not seem to havefound their lot as intolerable as in some other parts of thecountry. Their houses and clothes were very primitive, butthey seem to have had enough to eat and their relations withtheir landlords were comparatively good. Tithes were lessoppressive in Connacht, where they were levied only on cornand sheep, as compared with Munster where they had to bepaid on potatoes, milk, eggs and chickens. The Whiteboymovement of the 1760s and '70s seems to have had little effecton Connacht, and right up to the French landing in 1798 theprovince was regarded as the quietest part of the country. InApril of 1798 only one United Irishman was produced at theMayo assizes, and Galway was believed by the governmentto be the best behaved part of Ireland.20 Charles O'Conor ofBelanagare, in an account of a reclamation scheme on whichhe settled seventeen families with holdings of ten Irish acreseach, said that in spite of the primitive conditions they werenot pressed for hunger : they had plenty of potatoes, plenty

20 N.L.I., MS 5619 (O'Malley papers), p. 349.

Connacht in the Eighteenth Century 297of water and plenty of naked brats; moreover they were happyin the insensibility of which their southern brethren weredestitute.21 In 1773 O'Conor sent to the R.D.S. a survey ofthe parish of Kilronan in county Roscommon, in which hesaid that the peasants paid their rent by the sale of surpluscattle and pigs. The women in this parish did no spinning—which is in contrast to Arthur Young's experience of otherparishes. O'Conor commented on the practice of distillationin the parish. Every cottier to a man distilled his oats intospirits, and every cabin became a whiskey house until the spiritwas drunk.22

The introduction of protestant tenants from outside was amajor grievance. There were a number of attempts tostrengthen the protestant interest in the province by suchsettlements, and most of the violence that occurred was directedagainst protestant settlers. In particular there was a houghingcampaign against their cattle in Anne's reign, which excitedmuch attention. A colony of protestants established aboutthat time ion the Mullet in the far north-west of Mayo foundtheir cattle stolen and their gardens plundered by the catholicswho had been forced into the mountainous interior by thearrival of strangers.23 Protestant tenants were attacked anddriven out in 1757 by the O'Flahertys with a large band armedwith guns, swords and spiked poles.24 A protestant colonyat Manulla found it very difficult to maintain itself in anoverwhelmingly catholic region. John Wesley, who preachedthere, observed that the catholics had changed little in ahundred years; most of them retained the same bitterness aridthirst for blood and would as freely cut the throats ofprotestants as they had done in the previous century.25

The town of Galway declined greatly in the eighteenthcentury. Its fortunes had been built up by catholic merchantswho had developed a flourishing trade with Spain and France.As the most catholic of the seaports it came under grave

21 O'Conor to Walker, 21 Oct. 1786 (Gilbert coll.).22 J. Sinclair, Statistical account of Scotland, xxxi. 371-8.23 C. Otway, Sketches in Errts and Tyrawley, pp. 347-9.24 Commons' jn. Ire. (ed. 1798), vi. xcv.25 Journal, iv. 268.

298 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730suspicion after the Jacobite war. The Popery Act of 1704laid down that no fresh catholics other than seamen andday-labourers should come to live there, and that the existingcatholic inhabitants should give security for their good behaviour.When there were threatened French invasions in 1708 and1715, the catholic residents were turned out of the town.The corporation was in the hands of a small protestant groupwho showed little initiative and constantly quarrelled amongthemselves. In spite of these discouragements Galway towncontinued to be obstinately catholic. Very few protestantssettled there, and, whatever the law might be, there was aconstant influx of catholics. In 1762 there were 14,000catholics and only 350 protestants in the town.

Although regular trade declined, smuggling flourished andthere were many reports of brandy and other goods beingbrought into the town at night through gaps in the moulderingwalls. In 1731 the house of lords had a special inquiry intothe growth of popery in Galway. Numbers of friaries andnunneries were searched, but the occupants had absentedthemselves and the searchers found nothing but empty beds.26

The harbour suffered from neglect, and in 1769 the merchantspetitioned parliament for a grant to repair the ruinous quays,but many years passed before anything was done.27 Thewretched condition of the harbour had hastened the declineof the port, and in 1762 there were only three or four Galwayships going to sea. The town itself showed obvious signs ofdecay and grass was to be seen growing in the streets. In thelatter part of the century, with the relaxation of the penallaws, there was some revival in the fortunes of Galway as aregional capital. Jewellers and portrait painters came downfrom Dublin on periodical visits to cater for the needs ofthe Connacht gentry. There was a theatre which broughtdown Dublin companies to play comedies and farces—playswith such titles as ' Wild oats, or the gentlemen strollers ' or4 High life below stairs'. The profits of the theatre wereprecarious, and the management sometimes had to be helped

26 Lords' jn. Ire., iii. 115.27 Commons' jn. Ire., vii. 314.

' H' H i g h l i f e b


out by the amateur efforts of the local gentry.28 RichardMartin of Dangan, and later of Ballynahinch, was passionatelyfond of acting; Mrs Martin was an accomplished actress, andthere was plenty of local talent. Wolfe Tone took part inthese theatricals in 1783 in the celebrated tragedy of ' Douglas 'and the farce ' All the world's a stage \ In the process hefell head and ears in love with Mrs Martin.29

Connacht, because of its isolation, remained the mostconservative part of the country, where the Irish languageand traditions were strongly entrenched all through theeighteenth century. A great centre of tradition was atBelanagare in Roscommon, where a branch of the O'Conorshad managed to preserve a fair fraction of their formerinheritance. Carolan used often to stay with Denis O'Conorand later with his son Charles, the celebrated antiquary.Charles got a great part of his education from Carolan, whowas very fond of his pupil. The boy's translation of a Latinpsalm into Irish delighted Carolan so much that he wasinspired to take up his harp and burst into a song for theoccasion. Charles O'Conor's biography and correspondencegive a very good idea of the life of a catholic gentleman ineighteenth-century Connacht. He was on friendly terms withhis protestant neighbours, including the local clergyman, andgot considerable satisfaction from country pursuits—cuttingtrees, clearing land and building a retreat for himself whichhe called his hermitage. But there are constant references tothe penal laws, and he was very conscious of the precariousnessof his position. Family arrangements had probably contravenedthe laws and his youngest brother took advantage of thesituation to turn protestant and claim the land as a discoverer.Troublesome litigation followed, and an expensive compromisewas necessary before things were cleared up.

Another patron of Irish poetry was Hugh O'Donnell ofLarkfield, county Leitrim, who was responsible for the collectionof O'Donnell poems.30 He was a descendant of Neil Garbh

28 Connaught Journal, 1793, 1795.29 Liam 0 Briain, ' Theobald Wolfe Tone in Galway', in Irish

Sword, ii. 228-9.30 E. O Tuathail, ' On Hugh O'Donnell in Larkfield ', in Eigse, iii.

2 1 - 4 .

300 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730and had settled in county Leitrim as a tenant on a protestantestate. But he was highly respected by all the people roundas the representative of a great Irish family and was commonlyreferred to as ' the earl ' . Two of his sons became generalsin the Austrian army and were counts of the Holy RomanEmpire. But they retained their connection with Ireland.Conn O'Donnell of Larkfield was one of the few notablecatholics in Leitrim at the end of the eighteenth century.

Another branch of Neill Garbh's descendants came toMayo, and their story is of interest as illustrating the differentways in which an old Gaelic family could attain distinction ineighteenth-century Ireland. The O'Donnells seem to havecome into Mayo in the middle of the seventeenth century,when one of them married the daughter of a transplantedO'Neill. Neill Garbh's grandson Rory settled on a remotecorner of the Ormond estate in north-west Mayo. Rory'sson Manus was a colonel in the Jacobite army, took advantageof the terms of the treaty of Limerick to stay on as a tenanton the Ortmond estate, and in the 1720s moved into therecently founded town of Newport, where he was one of thefew catholics in a protestant colony. The O'Donnell's flourishedin Newport, leasing land and building up their financialposition. Manus's daughter Anne married a youngMacDermott Roe, and the occasion was celebrated by Carolanwith an epithalamium. Carolan also composed a poem, called4 The hawk of the Erne and Ballyshannon ' for Manus's sonCalvagh Roe. This Calvagh moved over to the east of Mayoto Newcastle, where he leased some land. His son went intothe Austrian army, became a major-general and a count ofthe Holy Roman Empire, and eventually returned to Irelandand spent the last years of his life at Newcastle, where he diedin 1793. He took his place as one of the leading catholicgentry of Mayo, although Wolfe Tone rather airily dismissedhim with the words ' General O'Donnell—he knows nothingof politics '.

Another of Manus's grandsons attained distinction atNewport, but did so by becoming a protestant. This wasNeil O'Donnell, who conformed to the established church in1763, and devoted considerable energy to developing Newport.

position. Manus's daughter Anne married a young


He encouraged merchants to settle there, started the manufactureof tobacco and claimed to have turned the place into the premierport of Connacht, producing a larger revenue than Galway orSligo.31 He became sheriff of the county in 1776 and a baronetin 1780. His accounts for 1788 show that he was drawingnearly £4,000 a year from his Newport estate, besides a veryconsiderable income from other property. The NewportO'Donnells turned into something very like a typical ascendancyfamily. A son married an Annesley, a daughter marriedSir Capel Molyneux; two sons were members of the Irishparliament. One of them, James Moore O'Donnell, was astrong opponent of the union. His story illustrates some ofthe perils of political life in Connacht at the end of theeighteenth century. There is an account of an election rowin Castlebar in 1790; the Binghams tried to duck some buckswho supported the Brownes, two of whom were candidateson the other side; the sheriff intervened and called in the armyand the consequence was a riot, in which a number of people,including James Moore O'Donnell, were severely beaten.32

The feud continued, and in 1800 James Moore O'Donnellfought a duel with one of the Binghams and was killed. Hissorrowing father put up a tablet in Newport church in thebest eighteenth-century style: ' The tears of his friends haveevinced his value, the regret of his country has recorded hisintegrity: in arduous times he proved his loyalty to his king,in corrupt ones he supported the independence of his country :and as he lived a man of honour so he died a man of courage '.In fact, there had been a certain ambivalence in James MooreO'Donnell's conduct in 1798. He had raised a corps ofyeomanry, but most of them were catholics who joined theFrench and seized control of Newport. After the insurrectionhad collapsed, James Moore O'Donnell took an active partin capturing some of the leaders who were on the run. Buthaving captured them he acted as counsel for their defenceduring the courtmartial proceedings, and when they wereconvicted he offered to go surety for them and used his influence

31 Commons1 jn. Ire., xi. 444. For Connacht O'Donnells see A.F.M.,vi, app. For Newport O'Donnells see N.L.I., O'Donnell papers.

32 N.L.I., MS 5619, p. 203.

302 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730to mitigate their sentences. A local clergyman charged himwith high treason and he was accused of aiding and abettingthe United Irishmen. A sworn inquiry was held into hisconduct, but eventually he was cleared.33 Suspicion was nodoubt aroused by the fact that George Blake, the general ofthe insurgents, was his cousin. These O'Donnells were proudof their Gaelic antecedents, and Sir Neil had the gratificationof getting possession of the famous Cathach—the battle bookof the O'Donnells—which his son-in-law discovered in a Frenchmonastery. His grandson made it over to the Royal IrishAcademy, where it now is.

The history of the Martin family makes a good exampleof the more turbulent side of life in Connacht in the eighteenthcentury. A running feud with pitched battles went on betweenthem and the O'Flahertys, who had been dispossessed by theMartins in the seventeenth century of most of their lands. Atthe beginning of the eighteenth century the Martin of the daywas Richard, who had been a captain in the Jacobite armybut had got a pardon from William III, which confirmed himin the possession of an enormous area of west Galway, inwhich medieval conceptions of law and order prevailed. TheO'Flaherty champion was Eamonn Laidir, or Edmond theStrong. The two used to fight on horseback, sword in hand.Martin was always surrounded by an army of his followers,which enabled him to escape with comparative ease, whileEdmond had to cut his way out through Martin's supporters.34

Richard Martin's son Robert was killed by the O'Flahertys.Another Robert, Richard's grandson, was also a turbulentcharacter. An army officer, who was spending the evening inGalway, had occasion to spit out of an upper window.Unfortunately for him, the spittle fell on the head of RobertMartin, who happened to be outside. Martin in a paroxysmof rage rushed upstairs, drew his sword and ran it throughthe luckless lieutenant, killing him on the spot. The trial washeld in Dublin, as Martin—catholic though he was—had toomuch local influence for the crown to expect a fair trial inGalway. But the Dublin jury had a good deal of Galway

33 R. Hayes, Last invasion of Ireland, pp. 305-6.34 O'Flaherty, West Connaught, p. 416.

Connacht in the Eighteenth Century 303in its make-up and returned a verdict of not guilty. ThisMartin was an enthusiastic Jacobite who caused much anxietyto the authorities in 1745. Governor Eyre reported thatMartin could within twenty-four hours bring to the gates ofGalway eight hundred men as absolutely devoted to him asthe Camerons to Lochiel. Martin thought it advisable to turnprotestant. Soon after he had a violent quarrel with GovernorEyre, attacking him with a bludgeon and a sword, until Eyrefell bathed in his own blood.

35

Robert's son Richard was themost famous of all the Martins. He was variously known asHairtrigger Dick, because of the number of duels he fought;the King of Connemara, where he ruled supreme over 200,000acres; and Humanity Dick, because—however little he caredfor human life—he was devoted to animals : he was one ofthe founders of the R.S.P.C.A. One iof his duels was foughtin Castlebar with another famous Connacht eccentric, GeorgeRobert Fitzgerald. This fight became legendary and the storyof it was taken down a hundred years later by Douglas Hyde.Richard Martin had a long and extravagant life, and his debtswere estimated at over £100,000. He contributed largely tothe impression of Connacht eccentricity and extravagance thatwas popularised by Charles Lever. His son, the last of theMartins of Connemara, continued the family tradition. Heand the O'Flahertys had a battle in which both sides mobilisedan army of tenants armed with sticks. But by the nineteenthcentury the machinery of the law had become more effectiveand both Martin and O'Flaherty served a term in Galwayjail.36

But not all the Connacht gentry were extravagant eccentrics.Arthur Young found several improving landlords when hevisited the province in 1776. Lord Altamont at Westport hadmade a number of experiments in bringing mountainy landunder cultivation. He had imported English cattle to improvethe local breed and had started a weaving industry. ThomasMahon of Strokestown gave Young much information aboutthe famous Roscommon sheepwalks. He had imported anEnglish ram, bought from the celebrated Robert Bakewell.

35 O. J. Burke, Annals of the Connaught circuit, pp. 84-6, 98-101.36 M. Edgeworth. Tour in Connemara, pp. 102-3.

304 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730He also employed a ploughman from Suffolk, who taught histechnique to ploughmen at Strokestown and on the neighbouringestates. Mahon went in for tree-planting on a large scale—ash, beech, silver fir and Lombardy poplars. Arthur Youngalso visited Woodlawn near Ballinasloe, the home of theTrench family, which was of huguenot origin and acquiredlarge areas in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon by judiciouspurchases and an astute marriage alliance in the seventeenthand early eighteenth centuries. Young has given a detailedaccount of Trench's experiments in bog reclamation. On theTrench estate every cabin had eight or nine Irish acres. Thetenants had two or three cows apiece and most of them keptpigs and poultry. Their women did spinning. Potatoes, oatsand butter were the usual diet. The Trenches had the rightsin the great fair of Ballinasloe, which brought in a good income.It used to leave Ballinasloe in a highly insanitary condition.The doors of the houses were almost inaccessible on accountof dunghills as high as the eaves. Sanitation was improved inthe early part of the nineteenth century by the energeticefforts of a clerical member of the Trench family.37 Anotherimproving landlord was Robert French of Monivea, whodrained bogs and developed the linen industry, sowing flax,starting spinning schools, setting up weavers and building ableaching mill. When Arthur Young visited him he hadninety-six looms and three hundred and seventy spinning wheelson his estate. Although the Monivea family had conformedto the established church quite early in the century, RobertFrench was regarded as friendly to catholic claims. There isan interesting reference of 1768 to the catholic Bellews (whothemselves had no votes) proposing to turn some protestanttenants into freeholders to vote for Robert French andDenis Daly.38 Daly wasa descended from a judge of James IPs.His father had conformed in 1729, but remained a strongadvocate of catholic claims and led the opposition in Galwayto the vigorously protestant Governor Eyre. The son, DenisDaly, was one of the leading orators of the Irish commons.He collected a valuable library at Dunsandle, the finest everformed in the province.

37 Statistical survey 'of county Galway, p. 332,38 N.L.I., Bellew papers.


1798 was a sensational year for Connacht. In August aFrench expedition, which was making for Donegal, was forcedby adverse winds into Killala bay in the north of Mayo. Theevents of the next month are well known—the capture ofKillala, the battle of Castlebar Races and the defeat atBallinamuck of Humbert's forces and of the Irish who hadjoined him. Up to the landing Connacht had been theprovince least affected by the events of 1798. But the excitementof a French landing infected a number of the catholic gentry,such as Blake of Garracloon and O'Dowd of Bonniconlan, whobrought along their tenants with them. They were joined byothers who were attracted—so it seemed to Bishop Stock—byFrench uniforms, military rations and the prospect of spoils ofwar.39 After Humbert's victory at the ' races of Castlebar'a provisional republic of Connacht was declared, with JohnMoo're of Moore Hall—great-uncle of George Moore thewriter—as its president and a council of twelve. Magistrateswere appointed—all catholics, but men of moderation whoadministered their areas reasonably and earned the com-mendation of local protestants. The bishop was surprised atthe orderly conduct of the insurgents, and noted that not adrop of blood was shed by the Connacht rebels except in thefield of war. There was some destruction of protestants'property. Several big houses were burned, and an attack wasmade on a colony of Ulster weavers who had been importedby one of the Gore family and had aroused the traditionaldislike of protestant colonies. The defeat at Ballinamuck wasfollowed by a terrible retribution on the Connacht insurgents.Martial law was imposed, hundreds of cabins were burned andmany of their owners hunted down and killed. A number ofthe leaders were hanged, chiefly through the efforts of DenisBrowne, who earned the title of Denis the Rope. Brownecomplained that his zeal in punishing rebels was not sharedby other protestant gentry in the province.

So the eighteenth century closed for Connacht in anatmosphere of unsuccessful insurrection, military repression,death and destruction. The hunted and houseless peasants ofMayo had every reason to feel betrayed and embittered.

39 Narrative of what passed at Killalla, p. 22.


Conditions in Connacht generally deteriorated in the earlynineteenth century, when a rapidly growing population led tocompetition for land and increased rents, and improvedcommunications assimilated the province to the rest of thecountry. Little was left of the easy-going ways in which sometolerance and friendliness had lightened the burden of povertyin eighteenth-century Connacht.

23

COUNTY SLIGO IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In the eighteenth century Sligo was a remote and seldom visitedpart of Ireland. It was far from Dublin and not on the way to anywhereelse, except from Donegal to Mayo. Right up to the end of the centurythere was no mail-coach route from Dublin to Sligo. There was onlyone town, and for much of the period it was small and undeveloped.The county had no resident nobility, not even a bishop's palace. Until1798 life was uneventful and Sligo finds little mention in the generalhistory of eighteenth-century Ireland. But the local history for the periodis well documented and there is a variety of sources, printed andunprinted, from which we can form a picture of a self-contained societywith an individual way of living that has many points of interest.

Social and economic conditions in eighteenth-century Ireland wereto a great extent the result of the wars of the seventeenth century inwhich the Protestants, first in Cromwell's time and then in William ofOrange's, defeated the Catholics and as a result got nearly all the landand enjoyed a complete monopoly of political and administrative power.Sligo is, of course, part of Connacht, and was so in Cromwell's time.But it was not part of the Connacht reserved for the Irish under thetransplantation scheme; it was earmarked for Cromwell's soldiers. Atthe restoration of Charles II some Catholics got back part of the landsthat Cromwell had taken from them. But some got nothing back andamong these were O'Connor Sligo and O'Gara, who had owned a greatpart of the county. The only prominent Catholic landowner in thecounty to be restored was Lord Taafe, who got back his estates atBally mote. Less than ten per cent of the county was owned byCatholics at the end of Charles II's reign.

The Williamite war involved much less confiscation in the countyand perhaps less bitterness than in some other parts of Ireland. Whenthe war began in 1689, the Protestants gathered in Sligo town to holdit for King William, but in the autumn of that year they surrendered iton honourable terms to Patrick Sarsfield, who treated them with courtesyand faithfully observed the terms of the surrender. After that it was heldfor King James for two years until it was surrendered, again onhonourable terms, in the autumn of 1691, just before the treaty ofLimerick. One of the prominent supporters of King James was HenryCrofton of Longford Castle. He was appointed by James to be highsheriff of the county and also represented it in the Patriot Parliamentof 1689. His family history was unusual. He came of English stock,settled in Ireland since the sixteenth century. His father had bought

308 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Longford Castle from its Irish owners and had married a daughter ofO'Conor Don. The children were Catholics, brought up in their mother'sfaith. During the Jacobite regime Henry Crofton was a good friendto his Protestant neighbours, the Irwins of Tanrego, and sheltered themwhen they were on the run. After the war Henry Crofton was pardonedby William and remained in possession of his estates. The family stayedCatholic until the time of Henry's grandson James, who fell in lovewith a Protestant, Miss Robinson of Sligo town, whose father objectedto the marriage on religious grounds. James turned Protestant andmarried the lady, and thus the Croftons rejoined the ranks of theProtestant families of the county.1

One of the members for Sligo town in the Patriot Parliament of1689 was Counsellor Terence MacDonagh, who also took a prominentpart in the fighting with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was admittedto the benefit of the articles of Limerick, which saved his property fromconfiscation and enabled him to practise at the Dublin bar for someyears, to the great advantage of his co-religionists. After that he retiredto his home at Creevagh, Co. Sligo. His reputation for shrewdness andlegal learning survived in the folklore of the county and there are severalstories about him recorded by the Irish Folklore Commission. He hadhis troubles as well as his triumphs; periodically, when there was ascare of a French invasion, he would be arrested, and his story bringsout the difficulties that life had for Catholics in the eighteenth century.But there is evidence that he was respected by a number of Protestants.2

The head of the Taafe family, Lord Carlingford, was killed fightingfor King James at the battle of the Boyne, but his brother and heir wasa celebrated soldier in the army of the Holy Roman Emperor, KingWilliam's principal ally, and a posthumous pardon was therefore givento Lord Carlingford. So the Taafe estates at Ballymote were not con-fiscated, though the family lived abroad in Austria.

The result of these pardons was that, unlike the position in some othercounties, very little change in the ownership of land in Sligo took placeas a result of the Williamite war.

Of the Protestant landowners at the beginning of the eighteenthcentury the most remarkable were the O'Haras, who were distinguishedby their Gaelic name and descent from the Coopers, Gores, Ormsbys,Joneses, Irwins and other landed families of the county. The O'Haraswere a relic of the ancient proprietors, a distinction they owed to the factthat early in the seventeenth century Teigue O'Hara had died leavingtwo minor sons who were put in charge of the court of wards3 andbrought up as Protestants. But they were not bigoted Protestants; they

!H. T. Crofton, Crofton Memoirs, pp. 142-3.2J. C. T. MacDonagh, ' Counsellor Terence MacDonagh,' in Studies, xxxvi.

307-18, and xxxvii. 65-74.3H. F. Kearney, 'Court of wards ... in Ireland, 1622-41' in Proc. R.I.A.,

lvii, C2, 54.

County Sligo in the Eighteenth Century 309

had many Catholic relatives and Kean O'Hara who owned Annaghmoreat the beginning of the eighteenth century married a wife from a well-known Catholic family, the Mathews of Thomastown, County Tipperary.Kean O'Hara was on very friendly terms with Counsellor MacDonagh.The O'Haras also gave shelter to the Catholic bishop of Achonry in hisdistress.4

Kean O'Hara's son Charles has left an interesting account of thecounty in the opening years of the eighteenth century.5 According tohim it was very much of a subsistence economy, in which money playedlittle part: ' In the beginning of this century,' he says, ' the wholecountry was covered with cottage tenants, who, having no foreign demandfor the produce of their farms, mostly paid their rent in kind, in dutiesand in work. The only money brought amongst us was by means ofthe army and some very few lean cattle sold to the Leinster graziers.So that an estate in this county before the year 1710, though amplysufficient for plenty at home, was yet of little use to support a landlordabroad. For this reason gentlemen generally lived on their own estates.'This account is corroborated by the estimates of rents in the countymade in connection with the confiscation of land at the very end of theseventeenth century. The rent of good land in County Sligo was put athalf a crown an Irish acre, which would work out at about one shillingand eightpence an acre for good and bad land taken together.6

An attractive picture of social life in the county in the early years ofthe century can be got from the life of Carolan, the famous musician,who visited many houses in the county, both Catholic and Protestant.' Carolan's country' included most of the well-known Sligo houses:Markree, Tanrego, Longford, Temple House, Creevagh, Coolavin andAnnaghmore among others. His music included tunes for Croftons andIrwins, Kean O'Hara and General Wynne. This tradition of patronizingIrish music was kept up in the latter half of the century, when ArthurO'Neill, the blind harper, visited the Irwins at Tanrego, the Croftons atLongford and various other houses, and was, in his own words, * un-commonly well treated.'7

Charles O'Hara described the middle years of the century as a periodin which the economy of the county went over to cattle-raising, whichbrought in more money but had the effect of clearing out tenants, sothat the county was very thinly populated. In 1733 the estimate ofhouseholds in the county was 6,200 of which rather less than one-fifthwere Protestant. This was based on the hearth-money returns, whichalmost certainly underestimated the number of Catholic houses. Allowingfor this, the population of the county in 1733 may be taken as about

4T. O'Rorke, History of Sligo, i. 239.5Ainsworth report on O'Hara papers (National Library of Ireland). I amgrateful to Mr. John Ainsworth for drawing my attention to this material.

«T. C. D., MS N. 1. 3.7D. O'Sullivan, Carolan, ii 167.


48,000—nearly twenty per cent less than it is today. The proportion ofProtestants was higher than in any county outside Ulster.8

There is an interesting account of the county written in 1739, whichsuggests that trade was developing and that there was a growing demandfor the products of the area.9 According to it, Sligo town was still verysmall, with rather more than 300 houses. It was an English mile longand half a mile broad and regarded as very healthy, with an oldestinhabitant who had recently died at the age of 122. The harbour waspoor; ships had to anchor off Oyster Island and needed a pilot to takethem past Blackrock, where there was no lighthouse. Even so, therewas an export trade in beef, hides, tallow, butter and barley. Therewere two markets a week in the town, at which large quantities oflinen yarn and cloth were sold. The country people also wove coarsefriezes. The chief manufacture in the town was usquebaugh, which Mr.John Debutts distilled in great quantities, having the ' largest and bestconveniencies in Ireland for the purpose'. The fishing industry was notdeveloped, but there were large quantities of shellfish—' mussels, cockles,etc., which afford a very plentiful provision to the poor and regalesto the rich'. At the mouths of the Sligo and Drumcliff rivers werevery large oyster beds and the oysters were ' reckoned for firmness,fatness and delicious taste to excel all others'. There were also manywomen employed in getting dulse and * slushkaun' [?sloak] off therocks. Kelp was burned to make soap-ash. The gentry were busy makingthemselves new and elegant houses, some of them with new and elegantnames. Charles O'Hara's ' pretty new seat' was called Nymphsfield.Mercury was the classical transformation of Markree, the home of theCoopers, ' a regular and very elegant piece of modern architecture'.But Owen Wynne's house * of Haslewood by far excels all the rest',and the writer gives a very detailed description of it. The house wasbuilt for General Wynne by Richard Cassel, the most noted architectin Ireland at the time.

In 1749 the Protestant Bishop of Elphin made a census of hisdiocese, recording every householder by name with his religion, occupa-tion and the number of his children.10 It does not take in the wholecounty, but covers a great part of it, including Sligo town, which had294 Protestant and 318 Catholic households—a much higher proportionof Protestants than there were in the county generally. At six per housethat would give a population of rather less than 4,000. An idea of agentleman's establishment can be got from the figures for Hazel wood,which was occupied by Colonel Wynne and his wife, two children overfourteen, two children under fourteen, twelve Protestant manservants andten Catholic women servants. The gardener and his wife were Catholics,

8The figures have been up-graded according to the formula given in K. H.Connell, Population of Ireland, p. 24.

9By the Rev. W. Henry, in Public Record Office of Ireland.i°In P.R.O.T.


and so were most of the thirty-four cottiers on the estate. Of course, wageswere very low at the time, although they were higher than when thecentury began. The O'Hara accounts show that in the early years of thecentury the coachman got £6 a year, with a suit of livery, a hat, shoes andstockings; by the middle of the century his wages had gone up to £10 10s-,with £1 for his washing and 7/- a week extra when he was in Dublin. Atthat time the gardener got £13 13s a year, the cook £10, the housemaid £3and the pantry boy £2.

The most famous visitor to the county during the century was JohnWesley, who passed through it more than a dozen times. He did not findthe Sligo people very responsive to his preaching and referred sorrowfullyto 'this sink of wickedness' and 'the poor, stupid sinners of Sligo'. His firstimpressions of the county, gathered on the way from Boyle to Sligo inMay 1758, were surprisingly favourable. He refers to the county as 'thebest peopled that I have seen in this kingdom; eight villages we countedin seven miles. The town, I think, is little less than Limerick'—a seriousoverestimate on his part—'the country round it is fertile and wellimproved, even the mountains to the very top'. He described a minor grainriot in the town, which took place while he was there: 'the mob had beenin motion all the day, but their business was only with the forestalled ofthe market who had bought up all the corn far and near to starve thepoor and load a Dutch ship which lay at the quay; but the mob broughtit all out into the market and sold it for the owners at the common price;and this they did with all the calmness imaginable and without striking orhurting anyone'. On one of his journeys Wesley's chaise got stuck in a'slough' near Tubbercurry; he had to be carried across on the shouldersof a countryman, while the chaise was forced through with great difficulty,with horses pulling ropes and men shoving from behind.11

The most colourful character in county society was Charles O'Hara, ofwhom mention has already been made. He made a fashionable marriageto Lady Mary Carmichael, the daughter of a Scottish earl and the sister ofthe Archbishop of Dublin. He is said to have won her heart by the dashand gallantry he showed at a hunting party in England. There were manytales told of him and his wonderful horses, shod with silver shoes; onestory was of his jumping from a precipitous height on Knocknashee.12 Helived in the grand style, with houses in Dublin, Bath and Harrow, a son atOxford and stables at the Curragh. His stud book and the account of hisson's racing expenses are among the papers at Annaghmore, and nowmicrofilmed by the National Library. O'Hara was a great friend ofEdmund Burke. Their correspondence has recently been published and isof much interest. Most of it relates to the English political situation, butthere are a good many passages relating to Sligo life. Burke and O'Harawere both enthusiastic farmers and tried to follow the writings of the great

nWesley, Journal, iv. 267-8; v. 506; vi. 191-2.12T. O'Rorke, History of Ballysadare, p. 399.


agricultural expert of the day, Arthur Young. Some of the new develop-ments were not suited to the Sligo climate and O'Hara lamented to Burkethat his wheat lay flat on the ground with the rain pouring down on it;caterpillars ate up his cabbages, and his servants, armed with Norfolkhoes, weeded his turnips so enthusiastically that they tore up two-thirds ofthe crop. Burke advised him to stick to potatoes rather than turnips andadapt his methods to Irish conditions.

In an earlier letter O'Hara described to Burke his efforts to modifythe local farming traditions: 'I went yesterday to divide a very largemountain farm among its inhabitants, who according to their owntradition have lived under me there for 500 years; 'tis their phrase. Withgreat difficulty I divided them into four villages, for 'twas an innovation;but I told them they must be modernized. They were sufficiently so as tovice and I have a desire to make them industrious and to preserve them.You'd hardly expect this from a man you used to accuse last winter ofbeing as bad as any Cromwellian. I therefore tell it to retrieve yourfavour.'13

Arthur Young himself visited Sligo on his tour of Ireland in 1776 andhas given a detailed description of the county. Oddly enough, he makesonly one incidental reference to O'Hara's farming—that he had got goodresults from feeding bullocks on potatoes. Young paid far more attentionto Joshua Cooper, with whom he stayed at Markree. Cooper had longgrown turnips for stock-feeding, but had lately taken to growingcabbages for feeding cattle and sheep. He found that cattle greatlypreferred cabbages, and that cabbage-fed sheep were much the fattest. Heused oxen for ploughing, four or six to a plough; they were far moreprofitable than horses. His hogs were fattened on potatoes, but rawpotatoes made the pork flabby and greasy; parboiled potatoes well saltedproduced good, firm pork. He had improved the breed of his cattle andhad done much land-drainage and reclamation of bog. Rents were fifteenshillings an acre and likely to rise still higher.

Young found that the county was going over from pasture to tillage,a development that continued to the end of the century. He said that mostof the tillage farms were very small, poor people taking land in partner-ship and subdividing down to five or six acres. This was the rundalesystem. In the south of the county Young was told that conditions hadimproved in the last twenty years; people were clothed and fed better andwere much more industrious. Fewer went off as spalpeens or itinerantlabourers. The rent of a cabin was £1 a year and the grass of a cow 30/-.The food of the poor was 'potatoes, milk and herrings, with oaten breadin summer. All keep cows, not pigs, and but a few poultry. They have anabsolute bellyful of potatoes and the children eat them as plentifully asthey like. The average price of oatmeal something less than a penny a

130'Hara to Burke, 30 Aug., 1771. Burke to O'Hara. 30 July, 1772 (R.Hoffman, Edmund Burke, New York agent, pp. 499. 526); O'Hara to Burke, 10Aug., 1762 (Burke. Corr., ed. T. W. Copeland, i, 146).


pound. All of them have a bit of cabbages. They prefer oat-bread both topotatoes and to wheat-bread. All afford whiskey. A year's turf will cost afamily 30/-. The common people are so amazingly addicted to thievingeverything they can lay their hands on, that they will unshoe the horses inthe field in the barony of Liny; they are also liars from their cradle, butwonderfully sagacious, cunning and artful.'

In the northwest of the county, near Easky, Young found the peopleless prosperous; 'the circumstances of the people are not at all improvedin twenty years; they are not better fed or clothed or in any respect betteroff than formerly. Nor are they at all industrious. Even of seaweed theydo not make one half the advantage they could; they might get sixty loadswhere they get one. They increase in number very greatly so as to beevidently crowded; this has been the case particularly since inoculationwas introduced, which was about ten years ago. They live on potatoes andmilk and for three months in the year on oatmeal.'

Young also stayed at Ballymote with the Fitzmaurices, who hadbought the property from Lord Taafe and had tried to establish linenweaving with the help of Protestant weavers imported from the north. Theenterprise had started badly, but later got on its feet.14 The O'Haras didthe same thing and built houses on their estate for eighty Protestantweavers. By the end of the century linen had become the chief manufac-ture of the county and there was a linen hall in Sligo town. In 1791 60,000yards of linen were exported from Sligo by sea.15

There is a well-known account in Young's book of MacDermott, theprince of Coolavin, who had astonishing pride in spite of an income ofonly £100 a year. His sons were not allowed to sit down in his presence.O'Hara was welcomed to his house, but visitors without Milesianpedigrees were given very offhand treatment. However his Gaelic prideseems to have been regarded as an amiable eccentricity.10

Local political activities were often controversial and there were agood many disputes over the parliamentary seats, two for the borough andtwo for the county. The Wynnes of Hazelwood soon established a firmcontrol over the borough and at the Act of Union Owen Wynne wasrecognized as its owner. For many years the county representation wasshared by a Wynne and a Cooper. For a considerable time the O'Harashad to find boroughs in other parts of Ireland, but in the later years of thecentury Charles O'Hara the younger got one of the county seats, withJoshua Cooper.as his partner. But they were not at all of the same out-look. Charles O'Hara, as a friend of the Burke family, was sympathetic toCatholics and tried to forward their case in the house of commons. Healso spoke and voted against the union. Cooper, on the other hand, was astrong Protestant, a privy councillor and a unionist. Elections were stirring

14A. Young, A tour in Ireland (Bohn). i, 223-43.15J. McParlan, Statistical survey of County Sligo, p. 81. Beaufort, Memoir,

p. 144.Woung, op. cit., i. 219.


affairs. We hear of rum punch and claret flowing like water; of the pollingbook being stolen and pages torn out and burned; and of electoral listsbeing thrown over the battlements of Sligo bridge.17

The condition of the county at the end of the eighteenth century isdescribed in a survey made for the Dublin Society by Dr McParlan. Hereported that it was primarily a tillage county and that, together withMayo, it was the 'principal granary and potato support of the manufactur-ing counties of the north in times of scarcity'. He noted that the quantitiesof potatoes, oats and barley produced were immense. He was mostimpressed with the farming abilities of Mr Wynne of Hazelwood: 'themore the soil of this demesne is unfriendly to agriculture and ungrateful,the more it reflects honour on the masterly exertions of Mr Wynne, whoas a farmer stands unrivalled in this and perhaps in most counties ofIreland'. McParlan said that Sligo was regarded as the best market inIreland for the export of grain. The cattle of the gentry and opulentfarmers, he said, were excellent: 'those among the mountains and the poorwere wretchedly bad and, until the mountains and the poor were firstimproved, not capable of much improvement'.

Sligo was still mainly an Irish-speaking county at the end of thecentury. McParlan thought that the English of most of the common peoplewas very imperfect and not improving very fast. There are accounts ofpeasants talking through interpreters to their landlords, who do not seemto have known Irish themselves.18 The purest Irish was spoken in Inish-murray. O'Hara mentions the island to Burke as a primitive Arcadia,which neither he himself nor most of the Sligo gentry had heard anythingof, although it was part of the county. 'They are an unmixed people,' hesays, 'their Irish purer than our people speak and many of their stories, Iam told, have all the natural beauty so well counterfeited in Fingal. Theyhave ruins very singular and of great antiquity. But the innocent simplicityof their lives is extraordinary. Extremely hospitable to any stranger thatgoes among them and miraculously chaste; whatever disputes may ariseare settled among themselves; they were never known to carry a complaintinto the great world. . . . When I go to London I shall try to get thisisland. I think you'd pay me a visit there, tho' you won't here.'19

There is an entertaining account of a visit paid to Inishmurray in1779 by the French artist, Gabriel Beranger, who was taken out to it byColonel Irwin of Tanrego.20 McParlan, writing in 1802, said that there wasonly one house on the island and that 'the children, the daughtersparticularly, of whom there are a great parcel grown up, seem to wish formore'.21 However, it seems that he underestimated the population as it was

i7O'Rorke, History of Sligo, i. 367.iSMcParlan, op. cit., pp. 5, 14, 88.19Burke, Con., ed. Copeland, i. 146.20W. Wilde, Memoir of Gabriel Beranger, pp. 43-5.siMcParlan, op. cit., p. 100.

Country Sligoin the Eighteenth Centry

at the end of the century, for in the census of 1841 there were nearly ahundred on the island.

Sligo town had grown considerably in the course of the century andat its close the population was estimated at over 8,000. McParlan said itconsisted of seven or eight streets of tolerably decent houses, some verygood. He went on say: 'it has been considered rather unclean and un-healthy, but it is by the kind interference of the lord of the soil shortly tobe paved, cleansed, flagged, lighted etc. to the great comfort and satisfac-tion of the inhabitants.'22 However, these blessings were still in the future.Like all other towns during the century, Sligo was in the hands of a small,unrepresentative clique who did little to promote urban amenities; therecord of their activities or inactivities since 1709 is to be found in theTown Book, still preserved by the corporation. There is mention of theemployment of a scavenger, but the general policy in sanitary matters wasto order each householder to clean the space in front of his own house.The courthouse seems to have been used for assemblies and anotherFrenchman, La Tocnaye, gives an amusing account of a concert heldthere, with the drummer in the judge's seat, the fiddlers in the lawyers'seats and the dock and witness box used for the audience.23

By the end of the century the population of the whole county hadgreatly increased. The number of houses in 1792' both those liable tohearth-tax and those exempt, was about 15,000, which at six to a housewould represent a population of 90,000, nearly double the population of1733. This trend became more pronounced in the following fifty years, inwhich the population doubled itself; it was over 180,000 in the census of1841, that is more than three times the population of today. There must,even during the latter part of the eighteenth century, have been growingpressure of population and demand for land, and this was reflected in therise in rents. In 1789 the average rent of the county, taking good and badland together, was put at twelve shillings an Irish acre, compared with 1/8at the beginning of the century.24 Sligo was falling into line with the restof pre-famine Ireland, a grim progression of growing population, increas-ing rents and diminishing holdings. In the first half of the nineteenthcentury Sligo was one of the most overcrowded and poverty-strickencounties in Ireland. But conditions were not like that for most of theeighteenth century. Writing in 1775 Charles O'Hara could estimate thatthere were twelve acres per head of the population in the county as com-pared with six in Ireland as a whole.25 Conditions were deterioratingtowards the end of the century, but the people of the county seemed tofind life more endurable than those in some other parts. Rents rose greatlyduring the century, and the people were at the mercy of economic fashion,tillage followed by pasture, and pasture by tillage. But for much of the

22lbid., p. 70.^Rambles through Ireland (Cork, 1798), ii. 68.^Hibernian gazeteer (1789), p. Ix.25N.L.L, Report on O'Hara papers.

ii 68

315


period there was not the pressure of population on the land that there wasin the south of Ireland. The people had the benefit of the Connachtcustom of exempting potatoes from tithe, and the sea coast (of which thecounty has an unusual length) provided food and fertilizers. The land-owners were mostly resident and were not specially harsh masters—not,for instance, like those of Tipperary. Charles O'Hara thought that toomuch of their own rural society was bad for them: 'ambition in retire-ment', he said, 'is the devil; bashaw over the poor, an intriguer for in-justice and oppression on grand juries, and a bad neighbour'.26 But thereare also accounts of landlords trying to help tenants out of difficulties, ofColonel Irwin getting the people of Inishmurray exempted from taxes, ofJoshua Cooper not allowing his Protestant views to prevent him fromdealing fairly in a case between a priest and some bucks who were annoy-ing him.27 We do not hear of the plethora of squireens and middlementhat were to be found in some other parts. This was presumably becauseof the high proportion of resident landlords and because of the rundalesystem, in which a large area was rented jointly from the landlord and thensubdivided. Whiteboys were not prevalent and right up to the arrival of theFrench in 1798 the county seemed peaceful enough. What was consideredan unsettling influence was brought into the county by Catholic refugeesfrom the north after the 'battle of the Diamond'. Charles O'Hara gavehouses to some of them and others settled in different parts of the county;it was alleged that they brought with them bardic prophecies of calamitywhich affected the temper of the natives of the county.28

The excitement of the French coming through on their way fromCastlebar to Ballinamuck brought out an enthusiastic populace, but theyhad no local leaders of the type that came forward in Mayo. There wasspirited righting near Collooney and elsewhere, and some damage wasdone to the property of Protestants. The list of loyalists who later claimedcompensation was not very formidable, and most of them appear to havebeen of the Protestant tenant class rather than big landowners. There is astory that the insurgents came to Longford House looking for one of theyoung Croftons, but when his father had himself stretched as an obstruc-tion in the doorway they went away.29 Repression followed on defeat, butthe hand of the law seems to have fallen less heavily in Sligo than in theneighbouring county of Mayo, where Denis Browne, the high sheriff,earned the grim title of 'Denis the Rope'. But 1798 must have broughtbitterness into the relations between landlords and people. The old centuryended unhappily, and the years that followed brought with them a rapiddeterioration of living standards in the county.

26Burke, Corr., ed. Copeland, i. 144-5.2727 Wakefield, Ireland statistical and political, ii. 750; Wilde, op. cit, p. 46;

O'Rorke, Ballysadare, p. 164.28W. G. Wood-Martin, History of Sligo, iii, 16; O'Rorke, Bally sadare, p. 400.29Wood-Martin, op. cit., iii. 25-6, 424-7.

INDEX

Abbey, river, 22Abjuration, Oath of, 215-16, 229-30, 260,

268, 274Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover

(J. Toland, 1705), 40Achonry, Catholic Bishop of, 309Acts of Parliament (English):

Declaratory Act (1719), 42, 257Forfeitures Resumption Act (1700),

166-7Act of Settlement (1701), 39Triennial Act (1694), 277Act of Union (1800), 252, 257, 259-60,

301, 313Acts of Parliament (Irish):

Act of Attainder (1689), 74, 162-3Bishop's Banishment Act (1697), 215,

239-48Declaratory Act (1689), 70-1, 79-80Act of Explanation (1665), 66-7, 73Popery Act (1704), 165, 215-16, 298Act of Settlement (1662), 66-7, 69, 71-3,

78-80, 150, 161-2, 186, 204-5Act of Uniformity (1559), 76-7, 215Act of Union (1800), 252, 257, 259-60,

301, 313Addison, Joseph, 231Adeisidaemon (J. Toland, 1709), 43Administration, see GovernmentAghnacrevy, 83Albemarle, 1st Earl of, see Van Keppel,

Arnold JoostAlbeville, Marquis d', see White, IgnatiusAlicante (Spain), 292Allegiance, Oath of, 203, 214-16, 220, 229Almanacs (Dublin), 60Altamont, 1st Earl of, see Browne, John-, 3rd Earl of, see Browne, John DenisAmerica, 55American Revolution, 259Amerongen Castle, Utrecht, 174AngliaLibera (J. Toland, 1701), 39Anglo-Scottish Union, 259-60Annaghmore (Co. Sligo), 309, 311Anne, Queen of England, 100, 117, 165,

216, 225, 229, 234, 254, 259-60, 264,266-7, 272, 277-9, 283-6, 297

Annesley, family, 301-, Francis, 271

Answer to Mr Molyneux .,., An ([S. Clement],1698), 257-8

Antrim, County, 83-, 3rd Earl of, see MacDonnell, Alexander-, 4th Earl of, see MacDonnell, RandalApprentice Boys (Londonderry), 137Archbold, Pierce, 88-, William, 85Archdeacon, John, Mayor of Kilkenny,

152Ardagh, 85Ardee (Co. Louth), 86, 96, 100, 162, 164Ardfert (Co. Kerry), 85Armagh, County, 68, 83, 144-, city, 43, 83, 175-, Catholic Archbishop of, see Maguire,

Dominick—, Church of Ireland Archbishops of, see

Boulter, Hugh; Lindsay, Thomas; Marsh,Narcissus; Ussher, James

Arouet, Franqois-Marie, alias Voltaire, 46Arran, Richard Butler, Earl of, see Butler,

RichardArt of Restoring, The (J. Toland, 1713),

41-2Arthur, Nicholas, 85-, Thomas, M.P., 84-, Dr Thomas, 26Asgill, John, 167Ashby, Admiral Sir John, 118Ashe, St George, 59-60Ashley, Anthony, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury,

39, 42Askeaton (Co. Limerick), 86, 226Aston, -, of Kilbarry (Co. Waterford), 16-, Sir Arthur, 4-9Athboy (Co. Meath), 3Athcarne Castle (Co. Meath), 3Athenry (Co. Galway), 84, 226Athlone (Co. Westmeath), 22-3, 87, 95, 134,

155, 171, 174-5, 179, 192, 201, 206-, 1st Earl of, see Van Reede, GodardAthy (Co. Kildare), 85Auersperg, Leopold, Count, Imperial envoy

in England, 238, 240-7Aughrim, battle of, 68, 134, 145, 156,

158, 163-5,171, 176, 194, 196, 201,206-7, 290

Aungier, Francis, 1st Earl of Longford, 69

318 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Austria, 164, 246, 308; see also Holy Roman

EmpireAylmer, George, 85

Babe, John, 86, 162, 165Baggot, John, junior, M.P., 84-, -, senior, M.P., 84-, Mark, 60, 83Baggotstown (Co. Limerick), 84Bagnal, Dudley, 83Baker, -, 140-, John, 166Bakewell, Robert, 303Ballea, 83BaUinafad (Co. Sligo), 172Ballinakill (Queen's County), 86Ballinamuck (Co. Galway), 305, 316Ballinasloe (Co. Galway), 296, 304Ballinelig, 85Ballintogher (Co. Sligo), 170Ballybofey (Co. Donegal), 170Ballygarth (Co. Meath), 3Ballygawley (Co. Tyrone), 87Ballygorianbeg, 84Ballyhack Castle (Co. Wexford), 13-14Ballykelly (Co. Londonderry), 4Ballymote (Co. Sligo),. 170, 178, 307-8,

313Ballymote, Book of, 35Ballynahinch (Co. Galway), 293-4Ballynahowen (Co. Westmeath), 87BaUynecloghy (Co. Cork), 174Ballyneety (Co. Limerick), 117, 155Ballyragget (Co. Kilkenny), 158Ballyshannon (Co. Donegal), 137, 141, 143-5,

169-70, 172, 175-6, 300Ballysodare (Co. Sligo), 172, 176Baltic Sea, 55Baltimore (Co. Cork), 68, 84Banagher (King's County), 85Bandon (Co. Cork), 83Bangor Bay, 92Bannow (Co. Wexford), 88Barmeath (Co. Louth), 161, 167Barnesmore Gap (Co. Donegal), 141Barnewall, 3rd Viscount, of Kingsland, see

Barnewall, Nicholas-, Francis, 84-, Nicholas, 3rd Viscount Barnewall of

Kingsland, 214-, Sir Patrick, 86Barnstaple (Devon), 55Barrett, Colonel John, 84, 122Barrow, river, 12-13Barry, John, 84

Barry, Richard, 2nd Earl of Barrymore, 69-, Thomas, 154Barrymore, 2nd Earl of, see Barry, RichardBarton, William, 165, 167Bath, 311Bavaria, Elector of, see Maximilian Emmanuel

IIBaxter, John, Mayor of Kilkenny, 155-, Captain John, 149-50Beachy Head, 117-18, 155Beauly (Co. Louth), 161Belanagare (Co. Roscommon), 293, 296Belfast (Co. Antrim), 67, 69, 79, 92-6, 99,

151Belfast Lough, 92, 145Belgard (Co. Dublin), 84Belleek (Co. Fermanagh), 141, 145, 171, 175Bellesheim, A., 245Bellew, family, 95, 290, 292, 304-, 1st Lord, see Bellew, John-, 3rd Lord, see Bellew, Richard-, Christopher, 163-, James, 164-, John, 163-, John, 1st Lord Bellew, 94, 161-7-, Sir Patrick, 161, 163, 165-, Richard, 3rd Lord Bellew, 163, 165, 264-, Captain Roger, 165-, Thomas, 86, 162-.Walter, 163BeUewstown Castle (Co. Meath), 3Bellingham, Henry, 162-, Colonel Thomas, 93, 106, 111, 162, 167Belloc, Hilaire, 105, 107Belturbet (Co. Cavan), 83, 175Benburb, battle of, 21Bennetsbridge (Co. Kilkenny), 154-5Bentii.ck, Hans Willem, 1st Earl of Portland,

106, 108, 110, 112, 114, 166, 185,187-9, 191-2, 195, 244-5, 247

Beranger, Gabriel, 314Berkeley, George, 46-7Berlin, 40Bermingham, John, 86Berwick, 1st Duke of, see Fitzjames, JamesBibliotheque Universelle, 33Bideford (Devon), 55Bills, parliamentary (English):

Occasional Conformity Bill (1703), 272,274

Bills, parliamentary (Irish):Beer Duty Bill (1692), 253-4Militia Bill (1692), 253Money Bill (1703-4), 268, 270; (1713),

284

(Bills, parliamentary [Irish], continued)money bills, 254, 282Mutiny Bill (1692), 253Popery Bill (1695), 237-9'Short' Money Bill (1713), 283Tillage Bill (1713), 278

Bingham, family, 290, 301Birkbeck, William, 60Birr Castle (King's Co.), 120Blackball, Rev. Offspring, 39Blackrock (Co. Sligo), 310Blackwater, river, 118Blake, family, 290, 292, 305-, George, 302-, Richard, 231-, Sir Walter, 84, 291Blanchfield, Edmund, 158Blathwayt, William, secretary to William III,

193, 241-4Blessington (Co. Wicklow), 88Bluecoat School (Dublin), 281Board of Trade (English), 255Bolingbroke, 1st Viscount, see St John, HenryBonaventure, 144Bond, Sir Henry, 86Bonniconlan, 305Bonnivert, Gideon, 106, 109Bophin, Lord, see Bourke, JohnBoulger, Demetrius, 105Boulter, Hugh, Church of Ireland Archbishop

of Armagh, 233Bourk, John, 86-, Thomas, 86-, Walter, 86-, William, 84Bourke, -, publisher of an almanac, 60-, Garrett, 286-, John, Lord Bophin and 9th Earl of

Clanricarde, 35, 194, 231, 290—, Michael, Lord Dunkellin, 231-.Nicholas, 231-.Patrick, 60-, Richard, 8th Earl of Clanricarde, 194, 214-, Theobald, 6th Viscount Mayo, 73- Ulick, 5th Earl of Clanricarde, 1, 22-, Sir Ulick, 84Boyle (Co. Roscommon), 86, 172, 311-, Peter, 60-, Richard, 1st Earl of Cork, 12-, Robert, 61-, Roger, 1st Lord Broghill, 2, 12, 18Boyne, battle of the, 32, 49, 73, 76, 104-16,

118, 132, 135, 145, 154-5, 162, 164, 166,174, 177, 181, 183-5, 200, 204, 207, 308

-, river, 3, 5, 95, 102, 105-7, 153

Brabazon, Edward, 4th Earl of Meath, 110-, William, 230Brandenburg, Elector of, see Frederick WilliamBray, John, 87Brenan, John, Catholic Archbishop of Cashel,

209Brest, 207Brewer, Richard, 110British Museum, 44, 179Brod(e)rick, Alan, 268-70, 278-9, 281-2,

284-5-.Thomas, 270, 278Broghill, 1st Lord, see Boyle, RogerBrown, John, 85-.Colonel John, 219, 222-3-, Nicholas, 84Browne, family, 290, 301-, Denis, 305, 316-, Dominick, 291-, George, 286-,John, 73-, John, 1st Earl of Altamont, 291, 303-, John Denis, 3rd Earl of Altamont, 293-, Dr Peter, 35, 37-8Brownlow, Arthur, 68, 83-, Sir William, 68Bruno, Giordano, 46Brussels, 21, 98, 243Bryan, family, 156-, James, Alderman of Kilkenny, 85, 150-.Captain James, 149-50, 158-, Pierce, 86-.Walter, 158Brydges, James, 1st Duke of Chandos, 35Buchanan, George, historian, 44Buckingham, 1st Duke of, see Sheffield, JohnBundrowes, The (Co. Donegal), 141, 144-5, 171, 175Burke, family, 290, 313-.Edmund, 234, 311-12, 314—, Thomas, 231Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Salisbury, 184,

271-2Burton, R., H.M. engineer (1689), 174Bury, Anthony, 167Butler, family, 156-, Colonel Edmond, 158-, Edward, 157-.Colonel Edward, 150-1-, James, called Lord Dunboyne, 214-, James, 1st Duke of Ormond(e), 1-6, 9-19,

21-3, 49-50, 52, 54, 63, 186-, James, 2nd Duke of Ormond(e), 75, 149-50,

154, 264-5, 270-1, 273, 275, 277-9, 281,283, 285

-, James, M.P., 87

319Index

320 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Butler, Captain James, 131-, Major Pierce, 158-, Piers, 3rd Viscount Galmoy, 149-51, 156-

8, 219-, Richard, Earl of Airan, 50-, Richard, 5th Viscount Mountgarrett, 158,

214-, Richard, M.P. for Gowran (1689), 85-, Richard, M.P. for New Ross (1689), 87-, Richard, M.P. for Co. Wicklow (1689),

88-, Theobald, 83-, Sir Toby, 50, 68, 131, 209-10, 213, 216-

17, 219, 229, 274, 278-, Walter, M.P. for Callan (1689), 85-, Walter, M.P. of Munfine, M.P. for Co.

Wexford (1689), 87Byrne, Sir Gregory, 86-, Hugh, 88-, Colonel Michael, 4-, Thomas, 88

Cadiz, 292Cahermoyle (Co. Limerick), 86Callaghan, Cornelius, 286Callan (Co. Kilkenny), 85Capel, 1st Lord, see Capel, Henry-, Arthur, 1st Earl of Essex, 51-, Henry, 1st Lord Capel, 237-8Cappaghroe (Co. Clare), 187Carew, Sir George, 120Carlanstown (Co. Meath), 87Carlingford (Co. Louth), 86, 92-5, 98-100, 162-, 1st Earl, see Taafe, Theobald-, 3rd Earl, see Taafe, FrancisCarlow, County, 83, 154, 231, 280-, parliamentary borough, 83Carmichael, Lady Mary, see O'Hara, Lady

MaryCarnantown (Co. Louth), 167Carolan, Turlough, 299-300, 309Carrickfergus (Co. Antrim), 92-3, 95, 144Carrick-on-Suir (Co. Tipperary), 15, 17-18,

155Carrigmenan, 87Carrigogunnel Castle (Co. Limerick), 23Carrigoon (Co. Cork), 84Carroll, -, Cornet, 143-, Owen, 85Carrowfrila, 84Carysfort (Co. Wicklow), 88Case of Ireland... Stated, The (W. Molyneux,

16S8), 255-8Cashel (Co. Tipperary), 87-, Catholic Archbishops of, see Brenan, John;

Comerford, EdwardCashell, Captain Thomas, 165Cashellstown (Co. Louth), 165Cassel, Richard, 310Castlebar (Co. Mayo), 86, 178, 301, 303,

305, 316-, 'Races of, 305Castlebellingham (Co. Louth), see GernonstownCastleconnell (Co. Limerick), 23, 25Castlehaven, 3rd Earl of, see Tuchet, JamesCastle Lacken (Co. Sligo), 169Castle MacGarret (Co. Mayo), 291Castlemore, 84Castletown (Co. Louth), 95, 163-, river, 95Castlewellan (Co. Down), 84Catalonia, 29'Cathach' (battle-book of the O'Donnells), 302Catholic Church, the, 68-9, 76-7, 79-80, 136,

244-5, 249Catholics (English), 226-, (Irish), 1, 4, 8, 10-14, 22, 25, 27, 31, 33,

42, 49-50, 53-4, 58, 62-3, 65-7, 71, 74,76-8, 80, 125, 136-7, 142, 149-51, 156,158-9, 162-5, 167, 169-70, 181-2, 184-6,190-3, 195, 197-200, 203-10, 212-17, 219,222, 225-35, 237-42, 244-6, 248, 251-2, 254,256, 259-61, 263-72, 274-7, 279-81, 285-6, 289-91, 293, 295-301, 304-5, 307-10,313, 316

Caulfield, family, Viscounts Charlemont, 52Cavan, County, 68, 83-, parliamentary borough, 83Cavan Park (Co. Donegal), 141, 143-4Cavanagh, -, Lieutenant-Colonel, 9Chandos, 1st Duke of, see Brydges, JamesChapelizod (Co. Dublin), 73Charlemont (Co. Armagh), 92, 144-5, 174-, Viscounts, see Caulfeild, familyCharles I, King of England, 1, 11, 39, 56, 70-1Charles II, King of England, 1, 9-11, 16, 18-

19, 23, 29, 49-50, 53, 56-8, 61-3, 65-7,70-1, 73-4, 118, 120, 161, 174-5, 191-2,200, 203, 205-7, 209-10, 213, 215-16,274, 307

Charleville (Co. Cork), 231, 280Cheevers, Christopher, 167Chester, 2, 55, 91-2, 99Chiari, battle of, 134Chichester, Arthur, 3rd Earl of Donegall, 75Chievers, -, Jacobite officer, 221Christianity Not Mysterious (J. Toland,

1696), 35-8Church of Ireland (or Established Church),

68, 76-7, 136, 165, 214-15, 254, 273,

Index 321276-7, 279, 283, 285, 290, 300,304

Churchill, family, 141-, Brigadier Charles, 124, 149-, John, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 40, 91,

117-19, 122-7, 141, 278Clady (Co. Londonderry), 138-9, 171Clancarty, Earls of, see MacCarthy, family-, 4th Earl of, see MacCarthy, DonoughClanmaliere, 3rd Viscount, see O'Dempsey,

MaximilianClanricarde, 5th Earl of, see Bourke, Ulick-, 8th Earl of, see Bourke, Richard-, 9th Earl of, see Bourke, JohnClare, County, 83, 219-20, 223Clarendon, 2nd Earl of, see Hyde, HenryClarke, George, 112, 193, 198, 209-12Clifden (Co. Galway), 294Clinton, Thomas, 161, 167Clintonstown (Co. Louth), 167Clogher,'Catholic Bishop of, see MacMahon,

Heber-, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see Jones,

HenryClonakilty (Co. Cork), 84Clonassy (Co. Kilkenny), 85, 151Clonderalaw Castle (Co. Clare), 24Clonmel (Co. Tipperary), 10-11, 17, 21-2,

28, 87Clonmines (Co. Wexford), 88'Cobray' (Co. Clare), 187Coghlan, Joseph, 67-8, 84, 183—, Terence, esq., M.P., 85-, Terence, gent., M.P., 85Colclough, Dudley, 87-, Patrick, 87Coleraine (Co. Londonderry), 138Colganstown, 84Collier, -, Colonel, 118Collooney (Co. Sligo), 146, 170, 178, 316Comerford, family, 156-, Edward, Catholic Archbishop of Cashel,

248-, Colonel Henry, 158-, Patrick, 11Commission of the peace (Irish), 278Confederation of Kilkenny, 1, 11, 13, 70Congregationalists (Irish), see IndependentsConingsby, Thomas, 1st Lord, 190, 196,

205-6, 210, 213, 219, 223, 270-1, 273Connacht, province, 22, 73, 141, 145, 169,

172, 175, 179, 184, 289, 290-4, 296,298-9, 301-3, 305-7, 316

Connemara, 294Connor, John, 85

Conolly, William, 278, 281Convert rolls, 290Conway, Francis Seymour, 1st Lord Conway,

228Conyngham, Sir Albert, 137, 141, 145-6, 171-2,

175, 178Coolavin (Co. Sligo), 309, 311Coolnamuck (Co. Waterford), 4-5, 7Cooper, family, 169-70, 308, 310, 313-, Captain Andrew, 170-, Captain George, 172-, Joshua, 312-13, 316Coote, family, 169-, Chidley, 169-70-, Colonel Richard, 156Corballis (Co. Meath), 86Cork, County, 2, 60, 73, 83, 219, 223-, city, 11-12, 19, 83, 117-20, 122-4, 126-7,

130-1, 248-, Catholic Bishop of, see Sleyne, John Baptist-, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see

Wctenhall, Edward—, Church of Ireland Dean of, see Davies,

Rowland-, 1st Earl of, see Boyle, RichardCotter, James, 281-, Sir James, 83Courstown, 85Courtstown, 150Cox, Richard, son of Sir Richard Cox (q.v.). 280-, Sir Richard, 264, 273, 275, 279-80, 282-

3, 285Cramond, Ensign William, 122Cratloc (Co. Clare), 83-, Castle, 23Creagh, Sir Michael, 84Creevagh (Co. Sligo), 308-9Crofton, family, 309, 316Crofton, -, Mrs (nee Robinson), 308-, Henry, 87, 170, 307-8-, James, 308Crom Castle (Co. Fermanagh), 151Cromwell, Oliver, 1-19, 21-2, 61, 135-6,

154, 161, 169-70, 204, 290, 307Croneen, Teige, 232Crosby, Sir Thomas, 68, 84Crosshaven (Co. Cork), 119Cruse, -, Dr, Catholic Archdeacon of Dublin,

248Cuffe, Agmondisham, 231Culmore (Co. Londonderry), 140Culmullen, 85Cumberland, Richard, 295Cunningham, -, Lieutenant, 143-, -, Mr, of Donegal, 142

322 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Curlew, family, 172, 178Curragh, the (Co. Kildare), 311Cusack, Christopher, of Corballis (Co. Meath),

M.P. for Navan (1689), 86-, Christopher, of Ratholeran, M.P. for

Navan (1689), 86-, Captain Nicholas, 86-, Colonel Nicholas, 219

Daly, family, 292-, Charles, 84-, Denis (I), 50, 72, 186, 189, 205, 304-, Denis (II), descendant of Denis Daly (I)

(q.v.), 304Dangan (Co. Galway), 291, 299D'Arcy, Nicholas, 167Dardistown (Co, Westmeath), 87Dardistown Castle, 3Darver (Co. Louth), 165Daton, William, Catholic Bishop of Ossory,

248D'Auvergne, Henri de la Tour, Vicomte de

Turenne, 117Davies, Rowland, Church of Ireland Dean of

Cork, 110, 123-4Davis, Thomas, 65, 67, 70, 72-4, 78, 81De Bonnac, Jean Dusson, Marquis d'Usson,

208De Bostaquet, Dumont, 113De Bougrenet, Jacques Louis, Chevalier

de LaTocnaye, 315De Burgo, Dominic, Catholic Bishop of

Elphin, 241Debutts, John, 310De Caumont, Antonin, Comte de Lauzun,

106-9, 111, 113, 119, 153De Courcy, Miles, 83Defoe, Daniel, 40, 272, 274De Gomme, Bernard, 50, 53-4, 56, 61Delamare, John, 86Delaney, Dr Patrick, 277De Massue, Henri, Seigneur de Ruvigny,

1st Earl of Galway, 238Dempsey, John, Catholic Bishop of Kildare,

248Den, Theobald, 158Denmark, 42, 98, 106, 119, 259Dermot, family, 164-, Bryan, 86, 162-, Robert, 86, 162-, Terence, 84Derry, see Londonderry-, Church of Ireland Bishops of, see Hopkins,

Ezekiel; King, WilliamDe Ruvigny, Henri, see De Massue, Henri

Descartes, Rene, 42De Schomberg, Frederick Herman, 1st Duke of

Schomberg, 91-104, 107, 110-11, 129, 145,151, 171

-, Maynard, 3rd Duke of Schomberg, 107-9Destruction of Cyprus, The (C. O'Kelly),

68, 77, 105, 186, 189Devereux, James, 87Devon, 117'Diamond', battle of the, 316Diderot, Denis, 47Digby, Simon, Church of Ireland Bishop of

Limerick, 69Dillon, family, 68, 293-, 4th Viscount, see Dillon, Thomas-, 7th Viscount, see Dillon, Theobald-, 8th Viscount, see Dillon, Henry-, Colonel Garret, 219-, Gerard, 87-, Colonel Henry, 8th Viscount Dillon, 87,

214-, John, 86-, Theobald, 7th Viscount Dillon, 194-, Thomas, 4th Viscount Dillon, 23Dillonstown, see WarrenstownDingle (Co. Kerry), 85Dissenters, Protestant (Irish), 62, 77, 233,

254, 263, 271-2, 274-5, 285; see alsoIndependents; Presbyterians; Quakers

Dodder, river, 57Doe Castle (Co. Donegal), 140Doe, Lewis, 87Dolben, Gilbert, 273Domville, Sir William, 255Donegal, County, 31, 67, 78, 135-6, 140,

170-1-, town, 141, 305, 307-, Bay of, 137, 140, 144-5Donegal Castle, 141-2Donegall, 3rd Earl of, see Chichester, ArthurDoneraile (Co. Cork), 84Donnelly, Daniel, 87-, Peter, 87Donore (Co. Westmeath), 87Donovan, Jeremy, 68Dopping, Anthony, Church of Ireland

Bishop of Meath, 69, 76, 212, 237,256

Doran, Daniel, 83Dormer, Luke, 87Douglas, Lieu tenant-General James, 107,

155Dowdall, -, Miss, of Kilfinny (Co. Limerick),

23-, Henry, 84, 162

Dowdall, John, 86, 162Down, County, 84, 137Doyle, Richard, 88Draper, -, Captain, 24Drogheda (Co. Louth), 1-5, 8-9, 11-12, 21,

84, 95-6, 98, 106, 127, 130, 151, 162-4

-, 1st Earl of, see Moore, Henry—, 3rd Earl of, see Moore, HenryDromada (Co. Limerick), 83Dromore, 137Drumcliffe (Co. Sligo), 178Drumcliffe, river, 310Drumleck (Co. Louth), 164Drummekelly, 84Drummond, John, 1st Earl of Melfort, 129Drybridge (Co. Meath), 110Drynham, 84Dublin, County, 71, 84, 259-, city, 2, 10-12, 36-8, 49, 52-7, 60-3, 66-7,

69-70, 75-6, 79, 84, 92, 95-6, 100, 106,108-9, 114-15, 129-32, 140, 144, 150-2,154, 157, 163, 170, 183, 190-1, 196,200, 205, 210, 248-9, 280, 282-3, 298,302, 307-8, 311

-, Catholic Archbishops of, see Russell,Patrick; Talbot, Peter

-, Catholic Archdeacon of, see Cruse, --, Catholic Dean of, see Russell, ——, Catholic Vicar-General of, see Murphy,

Edmund—, Church of Ireland Archbishops of, see

King, William; Marsh, Narcissus-, Church of Ireland Archdeacon of, see

Pococke, RichardDublin Castle, 56, 131, 169Dublin Intelligence, 178Dublin Newsletter, 60Dublin Philosophical Society, 59-60, 255Duffy, Gavan, 65, 81Duleek (Co. Meath), 106, 108, 113,

114Dun, Sir Patrick, 58Dunboyne, Lord, see Butler, JamesDuncannon (Co. Wexford), 11, 13-14, 17,

19Dundalk (Co. Louth), 2, 4, 11, 87, 93-

104, 106, 129, 151, 162Dundee, 1st Viscount, see Graham JohnDungan, Lord, see Dungan, Walter-, Garret, 9-, Walter, called Lord Dungan, 85Dungannon (Co. Tyrone), 141Dungarvan (Co. Waterford), 18, 87Dunkellin, Lord, see Bourke, Michael

Dunmore Castle (Co. Kilkenny), 149-50Dunsandle (Co. Galway), 84, 304Dunsany, llth Lord, see Plunkett, Randall

Easky (Co. Sligo), 176, 313Edgeworth, Maria, 294Edinburgh University, 32Egan, Darby, 286Elbe, river, 126Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 77, 120, 215Ellis, Sir William, 68, 86Elphin, Catholic Bishop of, see De Burgo,

Dominic-, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see Synge,

Edward-, diocese of, 295, 310Emly, Catholic Bishop of, see O'Brien,

TerenceEnnis (Co. Clare), 83Enniscorthy (Co. Wexford), 87Enniskillen (Co. Fermanagh), 69, 83, 91-3,

135, 141-2, 144, 151, 162, 169, 171,274

Epsom (Surrey), 41Erne, Lough, 151-, river, 141, 145, 171, 175, 300Erris (Co. Mayo), 294Essex, 1st Earl of, see Capel, ArthurEstablished Church, see Church of IrelandEugene, Prince of Savoy, 43Eustace, James, 88-, Maurice, 88, 220Everard, Sir James, 87-, Patrick, 86-, Redmond, 286Eyre, family, 290-, Governor Stratford, 303-4Eyrecourt (Co. Galway), 295

Fane, river, 96-8, 100Fanning, Dominick, 27Farrell, Iriel, 85-, Lieutenant-General Richard, 15-19-, Robert, 86-, Roger, 86Fennell, -, Colonel, 26-7Fenwick, Sir John, 285Fermanagh, County, 67, 78Fern, Lough, 142Ferns, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see

Ram, ThomasFethard (Co. Tipperary), 87-, (Co. Wexford), 88Fielding, Colonel Robert, 85Finch, Daniel, 2nd Earl of Nottingham,

Index 323

324 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730106, 117, 206, 264-6, 269-70, 272-4

Finglas, Declaration of, 162, 184-5, 189,204

-, -, Catholic officer at Drogheda, 9Finn, river, 139, 141, 143, 171-.valley, 136-7Fish Island, near Belleek (Co. Fermanagh),

171Fitzgerald, family, 68, 156, 214-, Edmond, 85-, Edward, 85—, George Robert, 303-, Gerald, Knight of Glin, 85-, James, M.P. for Inistioge (1689), 85-, James, M.P. for Ratoath (1689), 86-, Sir James, 85-, Nicholas, 87-, Oliver, 87-, Robert, 19th Earl of Kildare, 286-, William, 85Fitzjames, Edward Rice, 85-, Henry, called the 'Grand Prior', 106, 113-, James, 1st Duke of Berwick, 93, 95, 106,

120, 122, 138, 141-4, 197Fitzmaurice, family, 166, 313Fitzpatrick, -, Colonel, 118-, Thady, 86Fitzroy, Henry, 1st Duke of Grafton, 118,

125Fitzwilliam, Thomas, 4th Viscount

FitzwilHam, 214, 264, 269Flanders, 117-18, 146, 164, 177, 205Fleming, Christopher, 17th Lord Slane,

166-7Fleury, Andre-Hercule, Cardinal, 233Forbes, Arthur, 1st Earl of Granard, 63,

69, 72, 177-8Fore (Co. Westmeath), 87Forster, John, 278, 280-2, 284Foster, John, 225, 227, 231-2Foulks, —, claimant under the Articles of

Limerick, 158Foyle, Lough, 138, 140, 142-, river, 140, 143-.valley, 136-7France, 4, 41, 47, 55, 66, 79, 98, 106, 113, 120,

122, 126-7, 134-7, 141, 157-8, 163-5,167, 174-5, 178, 194, 197, 199, 203,205, 207-12, 217, 235, 244-6, 248, 251,271, 285, 293, 297

Frankfurt, 98Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg,

91French, family, 290, 292-, Patrick, 286

French, Robert, 304Frenchpark (Co, Roscommon), 296Friar's Island, Limerick, 24Froude, J.A., 65, 273Fumeron, -, French supply officer, 196-7

Gaffney, Captain George, 150, 158Galloway, John, 83Galmoy, 3rd Viscount, see Butler, PiersGalway, County, 84, 169, 289-90, 292-

4, 296, 302, 304-, city, 79, 84, 119, 133-4, 179, 192, 194-5,

205-6, 212, 214, 217, 248, 264-5, 267,289, 297-8, 301, 303

-, Articles of, 194-5-.Captain Walter, 129, 131Garirobuck, 83Garracloon (Co. Mayo), 305Gaydon, Major John, 133Geoghegan, Bryan, 87-, Charles, 87George I, King of England, 40, 42, 232,

234, 286George II, King of England, 225, 234George V, King of England, 69Germany, 40, 45-7, 293Gernon, Hugh, 86, 162, 167-, Nicholas, 161, 166-.Patrick, 167Gernonstown (Co. Louth), later

Castlebellingham, 106, 162Ginkel, Lord, see Van Reede, GodardGlasgow University, 32Glaslough (Co. Monaghan), 72Glin, Knight of, see Fitzgerald, GeraldGlorious Revolution (1688), 66-7, 74,

91, 122, 169, 204, 214, 225Goldenbridge, 187Goldsmith, Oliver, 296Gore, family, 141, 169, 290, 305, 308-, Colonel Francis, 170-1Gorey.a/zVwNewborough (Co. Wexford), 88Gormansto(w)n, 6th Viscount, see

Preston, Nicholas-, 7th Viscount, see Preston, Jernico-, 8th Viscount, see Preston, JernicoGormanstown Castle (Co. Meath), 3Gospel Truth Stated and Vindicated (D.

Williams, 1692), 33Government (English), 211, 213-15, 251-5,

268-70Government (Irish), 56, 213, 216-17, 228,

239-40, 254, 258, 265-8, 272, 277-8,285-6

Gowran (Co. Kilkenny), 85

Index 325Grace, family, 156-, James, 85, 150-, John, 151-2, 155, 158-, John, junior, 158-, Colonel Oliver, 86, 158-, Colonel Richard, 155, 174-, Robert, senior, 85, 158-, Robert, junior, 85Grady, John, 187, 188, 190, 205Graf ton, 1st Duke of, see Fitzroy, HenryGraham, John, 167-, John, 1st Viscount Dundee, 91-2Granard, 1st Earl of, see Forbes, Arthur'Grand Prior', the, see Fitzjames, HenryGrange (Co. Sligo), 169-70Grangebeg, 87Grangegorman (Co. Dublin), 280Grattan, Henry, 70, 225'Grattan's Parliament', 251Great Island, near Waterfoid, 13, 18Greencastle (Co. Down), 84

Hacket, James, 87-, Sir Thomas, 86Haddock, Admiral Sir Richard, 118Haggardstown (Co. Louth), 162, 167Hague, The. 246Hales, Colonel Sir John, 118, 126Hall, John, 59Hamilton, family, 137-, Elizabeth, Countess of Orkney, 166-, General Frederick, 282-, Colonel Gustavus, 141-, James, Church of Ireland Archdeacon

of Raphoe, 139-40-, Captain James, 137-, Lieutenant-General Richard, 112, 137-8, 140Handcock, Martin, 164Hanover, 39-41-, House of, 39, 41Harley, Robert, 1st Earl of Oxford, 40-1,

277, 283-6Harpeistown (Co. Wexford), 88Harrington, James, 39Harris, Walter, 273Harrison, -, a Benedictine, 243Harristown (Co. Kildare), 85Hanold, Thomas, 85Harrow (Middlesex), 311Haydock, Captain Josias, 149, 156Hazelwood (Co. Sligo), 310Helsham, Captain Joshua, 156Henry II, King of England, 256Henry VII, King of England, 11, 41Herbert, Sir Edward, Chief Justice of King's

Bench (English), 77High Life below Stairs, a faice, 298Hillsborough (Co. Down), 93Hinton, Dr Edward, headmaster,

Kilkenny School, 152, 168History and Reasons of the Dependency of

Ireland, The (W. Atwood, 1698), 257-8Hoffman, Johann Philipp, Imperial resident

in England, 240, 243-4, 146Holland, 12, 33, 35, 43, 45-6, 91, 106, 122-3,

136, 162, 165, 192, 203, 213, 241, 247Holies, John, 1st Duke of Newcastle, 39Hollow Sword Blades Company, 167Holy Roman Emperor, see Leopold 1Holy Roman Empire, 300; see also AustriaHop, Jacob, Baron, Dutch envoy-

extraordinary, 106Hopkins, Dr Ezekiel, Church of Ireland

Bishop of Derry, 32Hore, George, 88-, John, 87-, Martin, 87-, Matthew, 87-, Walter, 83House of Commons (English), 6, 101, 166,

186, 252, 255, 258-9, 273House of Commons (Irish), 38, 65, 68,

72-3, 78-9, 162, 191, 213-14, 216-17,225-9, 231-3, 237-9, 253-4, 258-60, 263,265-7, 269-72, 274, 277-8, 280-5, 304, 313

House of Lords (English), 71, 252, 255,257

House of Lords (Irish), 68, 72, 79, 162, 165,214, 217, 227, 239-41, 254-5, 257, 259-60, 273, 275, 278, 283-4

Hovenden, Walter, 83Howth, 13th Lord, see St Lawrence, ThomasHuguenots (in Dublin), 53Humbert, General Jean Joseph-Amable, 305Hungary, 141, 266Huntington, Dr Robert, 59Hurley, Sir William, 85Hussey, John, M.P. for Dingle (1689), 85-, John, M.P. for Ratoath (1689), 86-, Maurice, 85Hyde, Douglas, 303-, Henry, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, 52, 61,

63, 68

Inchjquin, 1st Earl of, see O'Brien, Murrough-, 3rd Earl of, see O'Brien, WilliamInch Island (Co. Donegal), 140, 142-3Independents, i.e. Congregationalists

(Irish), 62; see also DissentersIneen Dubh, 140

326 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Inishmurray (Co. Sligo), 314Inishowcn (Co. Donegal), 31-2, 44, 47, 68,

140, 143Inistioge (Co. Kilkenny), 85Ireton, Bridget, 21-, General Henry, 2, 21-9Irish Folklore Commission, 308Irish Rebellion (1641), 76, 136Irish Society of London, 255Irishtown (Co. Kilkenny), parliamentary

borough, 230-1Irwin, family, 308-9-,-.Colonel, 314, 316Iveagh, Lord, see Magennis, Bryan

James I, King of England, 73, 136James II, King of England, 49, 56, 58, 62-3,

65-6, 68-80, 91-3, 95-100, 105-11, 113-14, 117, 120, 122, 126-7, 129-31, 134-7,140, 143, 145-6, 149-52, 156, 161-3,169-71, 173-4, 182, 185, 197-8, 203-5, 207, 214-15, 217, 236, 304, 307-8

'James III' (James Francis Edward Stuart,the 'Old Pretender'), 229, 231, 260,277-8, 283, 285

Jamestown (Co. Leitrim), 85, 172Jenkinstown (Co. Kilkenny), 150Jersey, 29Jones, family, 308—, Henry, Church of Ireland Bishop of

Clogher, 18-, Lieutenant-General Michael, 2, 12-13,

17-18

Kearney, Dennis, 87Keightley, Thomas, 167Kells (Co. Meath), 86Kelly, family, 214-, Charles, 86-, Denis, 286-, John, 86-, Dr Walter, 85Kerney, John, 88Kerry, County, 68, 84, 174-5, 188, 219-20,

223, 232, 280Kilbarry (Co. Watcrford), 16Kilbeggan (Co. Westmeath), 86Kilcurly (Co. Louth), 164Kildare, County, 71, 85-, parliamentary borough, 85-, Catholic Bishop of, see Dempsey, John-, 19th Earl of, see Fitzgerald, RobertKilkenny, County, 79, 85, 226-, city, 12, 85, 149-57—, corporation, 154Kilkenny Castle, 150, 154

Killala, Bay of, 305-, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see Stock,

JosephKillaloe (Co. Clare), 23-4Killballane, 84Killiecrankie, battle of, 92Killigrew, Admiral Henry, 118Killincoole (Co. Louth), 167Killorky, 88Killybegs (Co. Donegal), 137, 141,

144Killygordon (Co. Donegal), 141Killyleagh (Co. Down), 84Kilmacthomas(Co.Waterford), 18Kilmacrenan (Co. Donegal), 136Kilmainham (Co. Dublin), 56, 281Kilmallock (Co. Limerick), 23, 85, 120Kilronan (Co. Roscommon), 297King, Captain John, 86--, Robert, 1st Lord Kingsborough, 295-, Robert, 2nd Lord Kingston, 73, 169-72~, William, Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry

and Archbishop of Dublin, 38, 66-7, 73-7, 227, 230, 233, 242, 272-3, 277, 279,281-6

King John's Castle, Limerick, 24, 27Kingsborough, 1st Lord, see King, RobertKing's County, 85King's Hospital (Dublin), 59King's Island, Limerick, 22, 25, 28Kingsland, Lord, see Barnewall, NicholasKingston, 2nd Lord, see King, RobertKinsale (Co, Cork), 1, 11-13, 66, 83, 106,

117-18, 120, 127, 150Kirk, Major-General Percy, 92, 118-19,

140, 142-4Kirwan, John, 84Klopp, Onno, 245-6Knappagh (Co. Mayo), 73Knockbridge (Co. Louth), 96Knocknashee (Co. Sligo), 311Knocktopher (Co. Kilkenny), 85

Lagan, river, 92Laggan (Co. Donegal), 136-8, 140, 143'Lagganeers', 136-7La Hoguette, Marquis de, 106, 109,

111, 113-14Lally, James, 84Lanesborough (Co. Longford), 86Langton, Michael, 150Lanier, Major-General Sir John, 299-300La Tocnaye, Chevalier de, see De Bougrenet,

Jacques LouisLauzun, Comte de, see De Caumont, AntoninLawless, family, 156

Lawrence, Dr Thomas, 100Lecky, W.E.H., 65, 74, 263Le Clerc, Jean, 33, 37Leibniz, Baron, see Von Leibniz, Gottfried

WilhelmLeigh, Francis, 85Leinster, province, 3, 73, 293, 309Leitrim, County, 85, 289, 300Lenthall, William, Speaker of the English

House of Commons, 12, 17Leopold I, of Austria, Holy Roman

Emperor, 135, 164, 166, 237, 244,246, 251, 308

Lery de Girardin, Marquis, Lieutenant-General, 106, 109

Leslie, Charles, 72, 126-, Dr John, 170Lctterkenny (Co. Donegal), 136-7, 143Letters to Serena (J. Toland, 1704), 42-3Letter to the Bishop of Worcester (J. Locke,

1697), 37Letter to the Freeholders of Ireland.... A

(1713), 280Levellers, 2Lever, Charles, 303Levinge, Sir Richard, 167, 280-3Ley den, 33Lhwyd, Edward, 34Liffey, river, 54, 281Lifford (Co. Donegal), 138-9, 143Light to the Blind, A, 105Limerick, County, 85, 219, 223-, city, 10, 22-9, 79, 85, 106, 117-20, 131,

133-4, 153, 155, 158, 163-5, 171, 174,178, 181, 185, 187, 190-2, 195, 198,200, 204, 207-12, 217, 219-20, 222-3,265, 267, 311

-, Articles of, see Limerick, Treaty of-, Catholic Bishop of, see O'Dwyer, Edmund

, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see Digby,Simon

-, Treaty of, 146, 156-8, 164-6, 199-201, 203,206-8, 210-24, 228-9, 231, 235, 238-9,242-4, 251-4, 264-5, 268-70, 273-4, 277,289, 300, 307-8

Lindsay, Thomas, Church of Ireland Bishop ofRaphoe and Archbishop of Armagh, 284,286

Liny, barony of (Co. Sligo), 313Lisburn (Co. Antrim), 93, 100, 228Liverpool, 55Lloyd, Thomas, 171-3-, William, Bishop of Worcester, 44Locke, John, 33, 35-7, 252, 255-6, 259Loftus, Dudley, 52

Loghmore, 87London, 33, 35, 45, 49, 57, 61, 69-70, 75,

149, 157-8, 176, 243, 253, 279, 314-, Tower of, 29, 126London companies, 73, 136, 255(London)derry, County, 67, 83-, city, 11, 45, 69, 724, 83, 91-3, 135-44,

151, 162, 169-71, 175-6, 227, 274London Gazette, 142Long, Darby, 83-, Dermot, 84-, John, 84Long Causey, the (Co. Donegal), 138-9Longficld, Robert, 86Longford, County, 16, 86, 309-, (Co. Sligo), 316-, 1st Earl of, see Aungier, FrancisLongford Castle (Co. Sligo), 170, 307-8Loughbrickland (Co. Down), 93Lough Mask (Co. Mayo), 230Louis XIV, King of France, 40, 78, 91, 162,

196-8, 203, 207-8, 217, 235, 238, 246Louisburgh (Co. Mayo), 293Louth, County, 68, 86, 95, 161-7-, 6th Lord, see Plunkett, Oliver-, 7th Lord, see Plunkett, Matthew-, 8th Lord, see Plunkett, OliverLouth Hall (Co. Louth), 164Low Countries, 16, 29, 55, 181, 188Lucan (Co. Dublin), 84-, 1st Earl of, see Sarsfield, PatrickLudlow, Edmund, 7-9, 25Lundy, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert, 137-

40, 143, 170Luttrell, Colonel Henry, 83, 171, 174, 197-

9--, Colonel Simon, 84, 96, 220Luttrellstown, 84Lynch, family, 290, 292Lyvett, John, 15-16

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1st LordMacaulay, 65, 105-6, 112

MacCarthy, Earls of Clancarty, 52-, Charles, 83-, Daniel Fion, 84-, Donough, 4th Earl of Clancarty, 122,

126, 186, 189-, Justin, 68, 83, 93, 122, 171-, Lieutenant-Colonel Owen, 84MacCarthy Reagh, Daniel, 83MacDermot, Terence, 86MacDermott, family, 313MacDcrmott, -, 313MacDonagh, Terence, 68, 88, 171, 308-9

327Index

328 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730MacDonnel, Alexander, 85-, Randal, 83

MacDonnell, family, 16-, Alexander, 3rd Earl of Antrim, 137, 186,

189, 214-, Randal, 4th Earl of Antrim, 269MacElligott, Colonel Roger, 85, 122-7MacGennis, Bernard, 84-, Ever, 84-, Murtagh, 84MacGillicuddy, Cornelius, 85Mackay, Hugh, 223MacKinlay, -, an Inniskillinger, 111MacMahon, Bryan, 86-, Heber, Catholic Bishop of Clogher, 22-, Hugh, 86McMoran, Patrick, 154MacNamara, family, 214-, Florence, 83-, John, 83MacNamee, Lieutenant James, 132McParlan, -, Di, 314-15MacSharry, -, Captain, 175MacSwyne, family, 136, 140Magennis, Bryan, 5th Viscount Magennis of

Iveagh, 69, 214Maguire, Dominick, Catholic Archbishop of

Armagh, 164Mahan, Patrick, 164Mahon, Thomas, 303-4Malahide (Co. Dublin), 136Malin Head (Co. Donegal), 142Mallow (Co. Cork), 84, 118Malone, Edmond, counsellor-at-law, M.P.

for Athlone (1689), 87-, Edmond, of Ballynahowen, M.P. for

Athlone (1689), 87Malplaquet, battle of, 157Malton, James, 56Man, Isle of, 29Manorhamilton (Co. Leitrim), 169Manulla (Co. Mayo), 297Maolbrigte, a scribe, 43Markree, later Mercury (Co. Sligo), 170,

309-10, 312Marlborough, 1st Duke of, see Churchill,

JohnMarsh, Narcissus, Church of Ireland

Archbishop of Dublin and Armagh,59, 62, 200, 212, 227

Martin, family, 290, 302-, Captain Cornelius, 134-, Mrs Elizabeth, 299-, Oliver, 84-, Richard (I), Captain in the Jacobite

army, 302-, Richard (II), 'Humanity Dick', son of

Robert Martin (I) (q.v.), 293, 299,303

-, Robert (I), son of Richard Martin (I)(q.v.), 291, 302

-, Robert (II), son of Richard Martin (II)(q.v.), 302-3

Martin's Castle, Ballynahinch (Co. Galway),294

Mary II, Queen of England, 117, 177, 183,190, 192, 203, 205-6, 210

Maryborough (Queen's Co.), 86, 152Mathew, family, 309-, George, 286Matthews, Andrew, Abbot of Mellifont, 164Maximilian Emmanuel II, Elector of Bavaria,

181, 246Maxwell, Brigadier Thomas, 92, 109Mayo, County, 214, 219, 223, 289-91,

293-4, 296-7, 300, 304-5, 307, 314,316

-, 6th Viscount, see Bourke, TheobaldMaytown, see Mount LeinsterMeade, Sir John, 67-8, 84Meagher, Henry, 85-, Thady, 85Meath, County, 71, 86, 166-, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see Dopping,

Anthony-, 4th Earl of, see Brabazon, EdwardMelfort, 1 st Earl of, see Drummond, JohnMellifont, Abbot of, see Matthews, AndrewMemoirs of the Chevalier de St George,

278, 283Memorial of the State of England (J. Toland,

1705), 40-1Menegatti, -, confessor to Emperor

Leopold I, 237Mercury, see MarkreeMethuen, John, Lord Chancellor (Irish),

36, 239Michelburne, Colonel John, 140, 145-6,

175-8Middlemen, 296Midleton (Co. Cork), 84Milford Haven (Pembrokeshire), 2, 12Mill, Dr John, Principal of St Edmund

Hall, Oxford, 33Milton, John, 38Mochury, 87Modus Tenendi Parliamenta in Hibernia

(1692), 256Molesworth, Robert, 42, 45, 259, 278-80,

286

Index 329Molyneux, Sir Capel, 301-, Thomas, 293-, William, 36-7, 52, 60, 70, 255-9Monaghan, County, 86Mon(c)k, General George, 2-3, 41Mongevlin Castle (Co. Donegal), 140Monivea (Co. Galway), 304Monro, Sir George, 3, 11-12Moore, George, 292, 305-, Gerald, 86-, Henry, 2nd Earl of Drogheda, 106, 162-, 2nd Earl of Drogheda, 106, 162-, John, 305Moore Hall (Co. Mayo), 292Morres, Edmond, 86-, Harvey, M.P., 85—, Hervey Redmond, 2nd Viscount

Mountmorres, 232Morsiei, Jean-Francois, 94Moughery, 87Mountbellew (Co. Galway), 292Mountgarrett, 5th Viscount, see Butler,

RichardMountjoy, 1st Viscount, see Stewart, Sir

WilliamMount Leinster, alias Maytown, 221Mountmorres, 2nd Viscount, see Morres,

Hervey RedmondMount Talbot (Co. Roscommon), 84Mourne, river, 139Moyry, pass, 95MuUet, The (Co. Mayo), 294, 297Mullingar (Co. 7/estmeath), 87Mullony, solicitor in London for Irish

Catholic lobby (1703-4), 269Munchgaar, Colonel Frederik, 125Munfine, 87Munster, province, 1-2, 11-12, 14, 17,

73, 117, 145, 293, 296Murphy, Edmund, Catholic Vicar-

General of Dublin, 247-, Nicholas, 154Murray, Adam, 140Murrough, Andrew, 83Mustard Garden (Co. Kilkenny), 158

Naas (Co. Kildare), 85Nagle, David, 84-, Garret, 214-, Sir Richard, 50, 68, 83, 88, 130-1Nangle, Walter, 86Nanny Water, 3Nantes, Edict of, 77, 91, 216, 274Nash, Vincent, 158National Library of Ireland, 311

Navan (Co. Meath), 86, 107Nazarenus.... (J. Toland. 1718), 43-4Ncagh, Lough, 60Neale, The (Co. Mayo), 290Newborough, see GoieyNewcastle, 83Newcastle (Co. Dublin), 84Newcastle (Co, Mayo), 300Newcastle, 1st Duke of, see Holies, JohnNewhouse, near Gowran (Co. Kilkenny), 158Newport (Co. Mayo), 294-5, 300-1New Ross (Co. Wexford), 12-15, 87Newry (Co. Down), 93-5, 100Newton, John, 167Newtown (on Lough Gill), 169Newtownbutler (Co. Cavan), 92, 144,

171Nihel, James, 85Nimmo, Alexander, engineer, 294Nottingham, 2nd Earl of, see Finch, DanielNovissima Idea de Febribus (1686), 60Nugent, family, 68, 214-, Christopher, of Dardistown, M.P. for

Fore (1689), 87-, Christopher, of Dublin, M.P. for

Strabane (1689), 87-, Edmond, 87-, Lieutenant-Colonel James, 86-, John, baker, of Drogheda, 164-, John, M.P., 87-, Thomas, 1st Lord Nugent in the Jacobite

peerage, 189-, Thomas, 4th Earl of Westmeath, 214-, Colonel William, 87Nutley, Richard, 228Nymphsfield (Co. Sligo), 310

Oaths, see Abjuration; Allegiance; SupremacyO'Brien, family, 214-, Lord, see O'Brien, William-, Daniel, 83-, Sir Donough, 229-, Lucius, 229-, Murrough, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, 1-4, 9,

11-12, 14, 16-17-, Terence, Catholic Bishop of Emly, 26-7-, William, called Lord O'Brien, later 3rd

Earl of Inchiquin, 125Oceana (J. Harrington, ed. J. Toland, 1700),

39O'Connor Sligo, 307O'Conor, family, 170, 299-, Charles, 215, 293, 296-7, 299-, Denis, 299-, Matthew, 8, 233-4

War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730O'Conor Don, 308O'Dempsey, Maximilian, 3rd Viscount

Clanmaliere, 64O'Doherty, family, 136O'Donnell, family, 136-7, 300-2-, Anne, 300-, Calvagh Roe, 300-, Conn, 300-, Hugh, 299-, Hugh Baldearg, 145-6, 177-8, 188-9-, James Moore, 301-, Manus, 300-, Sir Neil, 300, 302-, Neil Garbh, 299-300-, Rory, 300O'Donovan, Daniel, M.P. for Baltimore (1689),

84-, Daniel, M.P. for Doneraile (1689), 84-, Jeremy, 84O'Dowd, family, 305O'Dwyer, Edmund, Catholic Bishop of

Limerick, 27O'Farrell, —, Lieutenant-General, 10O'Flaherty, family, 290, 296-7, 302-3-, Eamonn Laidir, 302-, Roderick, 293O'Gara, 307-, Oliver, 87Ogygia ... (R. O'Flaherty, 1685), 35O'Hagan, family, 16O'Hara, family, 308-9, 311, 313-, Charles, 309-16-,Kean, 309-, Lady Mary (nee Carmichael), 311-, Teigue, 308O'Kelly, Charles, 68-9, 77, 105, 172, 186,

189Oldbridge (Co. Meath), 106-11, 113-14Omagh (Co. Tyrone), 141O'Malley, family, 296O'Neill, family, 300-, Arthur, harper, 309-, Arthur, M.P., 87-, Constantine, 83-, Cormac, 83-, Daniel, M.P. (1689), 83-, Daniel, nephew of Owen Roe O'Neill

(q.v.), 4, 5, 10-, Gordon, 68, 87-, Hugh Dubh, 10, 21-3, 25-9-, Sir Neale, 174-, Owen Roe, 1, 3-4, 10-11, 16, 21-, Toole, 84-, Colonel Turlough McArt Oge, 16, 21Oranmore House (Co. Galway), 291

Ordnance Survey (Irish), 109O'Reagan, Sir league, 145-6, 174-8O'Reilly, family, 214-, Philip Oge, 83Orkney, Countess of, see Hamilton,

ElizabethOrmond(e), 1st Duke of, see Butler, James—, 2nd Duke of, see Butler, JamesOrmsby, family, 169, 290, 308-.William, 170Ossory, Catholic Bishops of, see Daton,

William; Phelan, James-, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see

Otway, ThomasO'Sullivan, -, Colonel, 122Otway, Thomas, Church of Ireland Bishop

of Ossory, 69Overkirk, Lord, see Van Nassau, HenryOwens, John, 164Oxburgh, Hewer, M.P. for King's County

(1689), 85-, Hewer, M.P. for Philipstown (1689), 85Oxford, 33-5,45, 291, 311-, 1st Earl of, see Harley, RobertOxford Society, 60Oxmantown, Dublin, 50, 60Oyster Island, Sligo Bay, 310

Pale, The, 161Panthetsticon (J. Toland, 1720), 44-5Parallel, or Persecution of Protestants ...,

The (D.Defoe, 1705), 272Paris, 43, 157, 243Parker, Robert, 107Parliament (English), 11-14, 21, 23, 28-9, 42,

65, 75, 80, 166, 186, 209, 214, 251-2,255-60, 271, 284; see also Acts ofParliament; Bills, parliamentary;House of Commons; House of Lords

-, (Irish), 38, 54, 65-7, 69-71, 73-4, 76,78, 162, 166, 182, 196, 203, 210, 212-13, 215, 225-6, 228, 235, 238-44, 246-7, 249, 252-6, 258-61, 263-5, 271, 277-82, 284, 286, 291, 301; see also Actsof Parliament; Bills, parliamentary; Houseof Commons; House of Lords

-, (Irish, of James II, 1689 [the 'PatriotParliament]), 50, 65-90, 150-1, 162,183, 186, 204, 251, 307-8

Parsons, Richard, 1st Viscount Rosse, 69Passage (Co. Waterford), 11, 13, 17-19Passage West (Co. Cork), 119, 122Patriot Parliament of 1689, The (T. Davis,

ed. C. Gavan Duffy, 1893), 67, 81Pay, family, 158

330

Penal Laws, 76, 80, 167, 203, 217, 244,254, 263, 275-6, 290-2, 298

Pendarves, -, Mrs, 294Peppard, -, Alderman of Limerick, 134-, Christopher FitzGeorge, 84, 162-, Christopher Fitzlgnatius, 86, 162Petrie, Sir Charles, 105Petty, Sir William, 49, 52, 54-5, 60Phelan, Dr James, Catholic Bishop of

Ossory, 152Philipstown (King's Co.), 85Phillips, Thomas, 50, 52, 120, 122Phipps, Sir Constantine, 277-86Phoenix Park, Dublin, 73'Plottin Hall' (Co. Meath), 122Plowden, Francis, historian, 233Plowden, Francis, revenue commissioner

(Irish) and M.P. (1689), 88Plunkett, family, 161-2, 290-, Charles, 286-, Matthew, 7th Lord Louth, 162-3-, Oliver, 6th Lord Louth, 161-, Oliver, 8th Lord Louth, 163-5, 167,

214-, RandaU, llth Lord Dunsany, 214-, Thomas, 163-4Pococke, Richard, Church of Ireland

Archdeacon of Dublin, 294-5Polehore (Co. Wexford), 88Polestown (Co. Kilkenny), 158Polewheele, Bartholomew, 88Popish Plot, 205, 215Portarlington (Queen's County), 86Porter, Sir Charles, 52, 191, 198, 205-6,

210, 213, 219, 223-, Colonel James, 88-, John, 87-, Robert, 85Porthall (Co. Donegal), 140Portland, 1st Earl of, see Bentinck, Hans

WillemPortlester, near Drogheda, 5Portsmouth, 118, 122Portugal, 91, 239Powel, Edward, 84Power, John, M.P. for Charleville (1689),

84-, John, M.P. for County Waterford (1689),

87-, Richard, 1st Earl of Tyrone, 122, 125-6Poynings' Law, 65, 69-71, 80, 213, 226,

228, 237, 239, 251, 253-4, 265, 272,282

Pratt, Benjamin, 59Presbyterians (Irish), 62, 77, 136-7, 254,

277, 279, 286; see also DissentersPresbyterians (Scottish), 32Preston, -, 1-, Nicholas, 6th Viscount Gormansto(w)n,

3-, Jernico, 7th Viscount Gormansto(w)n,

3-, Jernico, 8th Viscount Gormansto(w)n,

214Pretender, the Old, see 'James III'Prior, Matthew, 40-1, 279Privy Council (English), 65, 212-13, 227-9,

238-40, 264-6, 268-71, 273, 275-, (Irish), 56, 193, 213, 226, 251, 264, 268-

70, 278-9, 280-3Protestants (English), 76-, (Irish), 1-4, 12-14, 16, 22, 32, 42, 49-50,

534, 58, 63, 65-9, 71-80, 92, 95-6, 125,13546, 149-50, 152, 155-6, 158-9, 161-3,166-7, 169-71, 176, 183, 186, 191, 193,200, 203-6, 209, 212-17, 227-8, 230,234, 238-42, 246, 251-2, 254, 256, 259-61, 263-71, 274, 278-80, 283, 285-6,289-92, 295, 297-300, 304-5, 307-10,313, 316

Prussia, 40, 42Purcel, Nicholas, 87Purcell, family, 158-, -, Major-General, 25, 27-, Colonel James, 152-, Colonel Nicholas, 197, 219Putney (Surrey), 45

Quakers (Irish), 62Queen's County, 86

Ram, Sir Abel, 57—, Thomas, Church of Ireland Bishop of

Ferns, 57Ramillies, battle of, 278Raphoe, barony of (Co. Donegal), 136—, Church of Ireland Archdeacon of,

see Hamilton, James-, Church of Ireland Bishop of, see

Lindsay, ThomasRathcoffey (Co. Kildare), 13Rathcoole (Co. Dublin), 129, 132Rathcormac (Co. Waterford), 84Rathmines, battle of, 2, 4, 12Rathmullan (Co. Donegal), 142-3Ratholeran, 86Ratoath (Co. Meath), 86Ray, J., printer, of Dublin, 60Reasonableness of Christianity ..., The

(J. Locke, 1695), 35

331Index

332 War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730Rebellion, Irish (1641), see Irish RebellionRed Castle (Co. Donegal), 142Regium donum, 271Reilly, Hugh, 83-, John, 83-, Philip, 83Reynells, Edmond, 85Reynolds, -, Colonel, 15, 17Rice, Edward, 86-, Sir Stephen, 50, 213, 216-17, 274Ringsend, Dublin, 2, 50, 54Riverston, Lord, see Nugent, ThomasRobinson, Miss, see Crofton, -, Mrs-, Sir William, 167Roche, -, Captain, 13-14Rome, 237Rooke, Captain George, 96Rooth, Francis, 87Roscommon, County, 68, 73, 86, 169, 232,

289-90, 296, 303-4-, parliamentary borough, 86Rosnaree (Co. Meath), 108-9, 113-14Rosse, 1 st Viscount, see Parsons, RichardRoth, John, 85, 149-50-, Michael, 157Royal Dublin Society, 297, 314Royal Hospital (Kilmainham, Co. Dublin),

56, 281Royal Irish Academy, 302Royal Society (of London), 60, 255Rupert, Prince, Count Palatine of the Rhine,

1, 11-13Russell, -, Catholic Dean of St Patrick's,

Dublin, 247-, Admiral Edward, 117-, Colonel Francis, 172-, Patrick, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, 61-

2-, Robert, 84Ryland, Rev. R.H., historian, 16Ryswick, Treaty of, 241-2, 245-6

Sacheverell, Dr Henry, 278, 285Sacramental Test (Irish), 233, 263, 271-4St Andrew's Church, Dublin, 50St Germain-en-Laye, 236St John, Henry, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke,

277, 279-80, 282, 284, 286St Johnston (Co. Donegal), 13840St Johnstown (Co. Longford), 68, 86St Lawrence, Thomas, 13th Lord

Howth, 69St Leger, family, 156-.Michael, 158St Mary's Abbey, Dublin, 50

St Michan's Church, Dublin, 50St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, 50, 53,

61, 104St Patrick's Purgatory, 215, 267St Patrick's School, Dublin, 59St Sauveur, -, Captain, 172-3St Thomas's Island, Limerick, 25St Werburgh's Church, Dublin, 52Salisbury, Bishop of, see Burnet, GilbertSankey, -, Colonel, 19Sarsfield, Countess, 129, 134-, Dominick, 4th Viscount Sarsfield, 129-

34-, Patrick, 1st Earl of Lucan in the Jacobite

peerage, 68, 84, 109-10, 113, 115, 120,129-30, 132-3, 141, 144, 155, 163-5,171-4, 176-8, 189-90, 198-9, 203,205, 208-12, 219, 222-3, 307

Saunders, Anderson, 282Savage, Rowland, 84Scarrifhollis (Co. Clare), 22Schomberg, 1 st Duke of, see De Schomberg,

Frederick Herman—, 3rd Duke of, see De Schombcrg, MaynardScotland, 1, 21, 32, 44-5, 75, 91-2, 98, 171,

259-60Scott, Colonel Edward, 175-8-, Francis, 176Scravemoer, Lord, see Van der Duyn, AdamShaftesbury, 3rd Earl of, see Ashley, AnthonyShales, Henry, 92-, John, 92, 98, 101Shanley, William, 85Shannon, river, 22-4, 28, 60, 95, 119-20,

161, 174, 197, 207-8, 289, 294Sharp, Anthony, 53, 62Shea, Patrick, 150Shee, family, 156—, James, 150-, Richard, 158Sheffield, John, 1st Duke of Buckingham,

158Sheldon, Colonel Dominick, 154Sherlock, Edward, 88Shrewsbury, 1 st Duke of, see Talbot,

CharlesSilesia, 266'Sixth of George I', see Acts of Parliament

(English), Declaratory Act (1719)Slane (Co. Meath), 106-10, 114-, 17th Lord, see Fleming, ChristopherSleyne, John Baptist, Catholic Bishop

of Cork, 248Sligo, County, 87, 169, 188, 219, 289,

301, 307-16

Index 333Sligo, town, 87, 135, 141, 145-6, 169-79,

307-8, 310-11, 313-15Smith, Edward, 59-60-, Erasmus, 162-, John, 57-, Captain Richard, 173Smyth, Valentine, 149-50Sodnianism Truly Stated (J. Toland, 1705),

43Solms-Braunfels, Henry Trajectinus, Count

Solms, 107, 118-19Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 40South Sea Bubble, 167Southwell, Edward, 265-6, 269-70, 274,

277-83, 285-, Sir Robert, 106, 111-12, 114, 182-5Spain, 21, 29, 55, 91, 135, 157, 189, 278,

293, 297Spencer, Robert, 2nd Earl of Sunderland,

244Spinoza, Benedictus de, 42Stafford, Dr Alexis, 68, 88—, Francis, 83-, Captain Nicholas, 88Stanihurst, Richard, 44Stanley, Sir John, 280-3State of the Protestants of Ireland, The

(W. King, 1691), 67, 75, 272Stcarne, Dr John, 58Stephenstown (Co. Louth), 167Stevens, Captain John, 94, 101, 106,

113, 153Stewart, Sir William, 1st Viscount Mountjoy,

137, 141Stickillin (Co, Louth), 163-4, 167Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop of Worcester, 44Stock, Joseph, Church of Ireland Bishop

of Killala, 305Stonetown (Co. Louth), 167Story, Reverend George, 93, 95, 97, 99-100,

106, 108, 110-11, 114, 123, 154, 173,184, 189

'Story of the Injured Lady, The' (J. Swift,unpublished), 260

Strabane (Co. Tyrone), 87, 137-8, 141, 143Strange, Abraham, 88Stranorlar (Co. Donegal), 141Strathnagaloon, 83Strokestown (Co. Roscommon), 303-4Stuart, James Francis Edward, see 'James III'Suir, river, 11, 13, 15, 18Sunderland, 2nd Earl of, see Spencer, RobertSupremacy, Oath of, 225-6, 232Sweeney, Michael, 286Swift, Jonathan, 31, 40-1, 46, 52, 59, 70,

74, 79, 104, 233, 260, 277-9, 281, 283-6Swilly, Lough, 137, 140. 142, 144Swilly Burn (Co. Donegal), 138Swords (Co. Dublin), 3, 84Sydney, Henry, 1st Viscount Sydney, 165-7,

253, 260Sylvius, Dr Jacob, 60Synge, Edward, Church of Ireland Archbishop

of Tuam, 293-, Edward, Church of Ireland Bishop of

Elphin, 310Syonane, 87

Taafe, family, 161, 164, 166, 308-.Christopher, 167-, Francis, 3rd Earl of Carlingford, 165-7,

308-, Nicholas, 4th Earl of Carlingford, 166-, Nicholas, son of Christopher Taafe (q.v.),

167-, Theobald, 1st Earl of Carlingford, 1, 161Taghmon (Co, Wcxford), 88Talbot, Charles, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury,

277-86--, Frances, Countess of Tyrconnell, 69-, James, 84-,John,84—, Marcus, 83-, Peter, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, 61-, Richard, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, 9, 49, 54,

62-3, 66-8, 71, 78, 91, 95-6, 109, 111,119, 130, 136-7, 145, 153-4, 162-3,166-7, 169-70, 177, 187, 191, 196-8,207, 223

-, William, M P. for County Louth (1689), 86,162, 167

-, William, M.P. for Wexford town (1689), 87-.William, M.P. for County Wicklow(1689),

88-, Sir William, 86Talbot's Inch (Co. Kilkenny), 153Talmash, Thomas, see Tollemache, ThomasTamerlane (Sir S. Garth's prologue), 278Tanrego (Co. Sligo), 308-9Teignmouth (Devon), 117Temple House (Co. Sligo), 309Tenison, Thomas, 165Test, see Sacramental TestTholsel (Dublin), 281Thomastown (Co. Kilkenny), 85Thomastown (Co. Louth), 165Thornton, Robert, 60Tichborne, Sir William, 161-2Ticroghan Castle (Co. Meath), 5, 10Tipperary, County, 87, 145, 316

334Tisdall, Richard, 167Toberduff, 88Tobin, James, 87-.Walter, 158Toland, John, 31-47Tollemache (Talmash), Thomas, 223Toilet, George, 60Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 80, 292, 299-300Toole, Francis, 88Torbay (Devon), 117Torway, John, headmaster of St Patrick's

School, Dublin, 59Tothill, -, Colonel, 25Townley, Henry, 162Townley Hall (Co, Louth), 162Townsend, Lieutenant Horatio, 124Tralee (Co. Kerry), 85Trant, Sit Patrick, 86Trench, family, 304Trillick (Co. Tyrone), 142Trim (Co. Meath), 86, 226Trinity College, Dublin, 35, 50, 55, 58-9,

65, 67, 84, 183, 255, 277-8, 281Trynder, John, 86Tuam (Co. Galway), 134-, Church of Ireland Archbishop of, see

Synge, EdwardTubbercurry (Co. Sligo), 311Tuchet, James, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven,

13-14, 23-4Tuite, Philip, 83Tullendaly, 84Tully (Co. Donegal), 142Turenne, Vicomte de, see D'Auvergne,

Henri de la TourTurvey (Co. Dublin), 3Two Treatises of Government (J. Locke,

1690), 255Tyrconnell, Countess of, see Talbot, Frances-, 1st Earl of, see Talbot, RichardTyrone, County, 68, 87-, 1st Earl of, see Power, RichardTyrrel, Sir Edward, 83

Ulster, province, 3, 15-17, 19, 67, 69, 77,92, 100, 136, 141, 144-5, 169, 174-5,177, 252, 254, 293, 305, 310

-, General Synod of, 62Uniacke, Thomas, 83Union, of England and Scotland (1707); see

Anglo-Scottish UnionUnion of Great Britain and Ireland (1800),

see Acts of Parliament (English; Irish),Act of Union (1800)

United Irishmen, Society of, 296, 302

War and Politics in Ireland, 1649-1730University of St Canice's (or Royal College),

Kilkenny, 152Unreformed House of Commons, The

(E. and Annie G. Porritt, 1903), 225, 232Ussher, James, Church of Ireland Archbishop

of Armagh, 38, 44, 52Usson, Marquis d', see De Bonnac, Jean DussonUtrecht, Treaty of, 277

Van der Duyn, Adam, Lord Scravcmoer,Major-General, 118-19, 122-4, 126,223

Van Keppel, Arnold Joost, 1st Earl ofAlbemarle, 166

Van Nassau, Henry, Lord Overkirk, 149Van Reede, Godard, Lord Ginkel, 1st Earl

of Athlone, 28, 119, 145-6, 155, 157,163-6, 174-6, 185-97, 199-201, 205-13,219, 223

Vatican, 284-5Vatican Archives, 238Verney, Sir Edmond, 4, 5, 9Yernon, James, 240Vienna, 237, 243Vindication of the Parliament of England ...,

A (J. Cary, 1698), 257-8Voltaire, see Arouet, Franqois-MarieVon Donop, Colonel Moritz Melchior, 113Von Holbach, Baron, 46-7Von Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron

Leibniz, 40, 43Von Rosen, Marshal Conrad, 97, 139-40,

142-4Von Tettau, Major-General Julius Ernst, 118-

19, 122Von Zurlauben, Colonel Conrad, 113

Wadding, Father Luke, 11-.Thomas, 16Waddington, Arthur, 87Waldeck, George Frederick, Prince of, 117Wales, 13Walker, Reverend George, 140Wall, Colonel Garrett, 4, 5, 7Waller, Major-General Sir Hardress, 23Walsh, family, 156-, Robert, 85, 150-1, 158Warren, John, 83-, Colonel William, 4-5, 9Warrenstown, later Dillonstown (Co. Louth),

4-5, 9Waterford, County, 87-.city, 10-19, 79, 87, 118, 123-4Wauchope, Brigadier John, 153, 199Wesley, John, 293, 297, 311

Index 335Westmeath, County, 87-, 4th Earl of, see Nugent, ThomasWestport (Co. Mayo), 290, 303Wetenhall, Edward, Church of Ireland Bishop

of Cork, 69, 124, 127Wexford, County, 57, 68, 87-, town, 11-13, 21, 87Whalley, -, Dr, publisher of an almanac,

60Wharton, Thomas, 1st Marquess of Wharton,

277White, Charles, 86-, Ignatius, Marquis d'Albeville, 126, 187-, Nicholas, M.P. for Clonmcl (1689), 87-, Nicholas, M.P. for Clonmines (1689), 88-, Rowland, 84, 220Whiteboys, 296, 316Whitehall, 243, 253Whitehaven (Cumberland), 55Wicklow, County, 88—, parliamentary borough, 88Wight, Isle of, 122Wild Geese, 146Wild Oats, or the Gentlemen Strollers, a farce.

298William III, King of England, 28, 49, 66-7, 69,

74-6, 91-2, 96-9, 101- 4, 105-8, 110-12, 114117-19, 122, 125, 127, 135-7, 145,

149-50, 154-5, 157, 161-6, 169,171, 174-7, 181-90, 192, 194, 197,199-201, 203-6, 209-10, 212-15, 217,226, 228, 235, 237-8, 240-7, 249, 251,254-5, 258-60, 278-9, 285, 302,307-8

Williams, Dr Daniel, 33-.William, 51Wogan, family, 13-.Edward, 13-14, 18-19-, John, 85-, William, 264, 269-70Wolseley, Colonel William, 144Wood, Richard, 169Woodlawn House (Co. Sligo), 304Wood-Martin, W.G., 174, 179Woodpark (Co. Meath), 84Worcester, Bishops of, see Lloyd, William;

Stillingfleet, EdwardWiirtemberg, Frederick William, Duke of,

110-12, 119, 123-7, 132, 205Wynne, family, 313-, General Owen, 175, 309-10, 313-14

Yeomanstown (Co. Kildare), 220-1Youghal (Co. Cork), 11-12, 14, 83Young, Arthur, 297, 303-4, 312-13'Young Ireland', 81