Chapter IX: Part II: The Eve of “1641” (5)

He now set himself to work to annul the lately concluded peace, and found a strong supporter in Owen Roe O’Neill, who with his followers persisted in the belief that the Pope would help the Irish to shake off the yoke of England. While we must sympathise with O’Neill’s true-hearted and enthusiastic patriotism, we must remember the Pope’s positive instructions to Rinuccini on that point. Rinuccini, moreover, warned O’Neill against nourishing such hopes, and expressed his annoyance at his calling his force the “Pontifical Army.” At the same time the Nuncio was only too glad to make use of O’Neill to overthrow the Confederation. After Owen Roe’s brilliant victory over the Scots at Benburb, on the 5th June, Rinuccini supplied him with funds and accompanied him to the siege of Bunratty, which surrendered in July. Ormond’s peace was proclaimed in Dublin on 30th July and at Kilkenny, but Rinuccini and the majority of the clergy procured its rejection at Limerick, Clonmel, Waterford, and other places. The Nuncio held a convocation of some of the clergy at Waterford, and on 12th August declared that the Confederate Catholics supporting the peace were perjured for having failed to obtain for the Church first of all such terms as they had sworn to obtain by their Oath of Confederation. He also issued an interdict against the places that had accepted it, ordered their churches to be closed, and the sacraments refused to the inhabitants. This exercise of his powers cost him a severe snub from Rome. The Cardinal Secretary wrote: “Moreover, having seen a printed paper, in which the authors and supporters of the peace between Ireland and the Marquis of Ormond are pronounced to be perjurers and a protest which the Ecclesiastical Congregation has made in these precise [Latin] words, ‘For these and other reasons moved only by our conscience and having only God before our eyes, that it may be known to all and singular both in Ireland and abroad, we have not given and should not give our consent to any such peace unless according to our oath it contains conditions for Religion, for King, and for Country, etc., etc.’ And this paper is subscribed first by your Excellency and then by the Archbishops, Bishops, and ecclesiastics of Ireland. It appears to His Holiness and to us that in this your Excellency has departed from your instructions, because it never was intended to maintain the Irish as rebels against the King, but simply to assist them in obtaining the assurance of the free exercise of the Catholic religion in Ireland.... From the specimen which I have taken from this printed document, in which occurs the Latin words I have quoted, your Excellency will be able to regulate your conduct on such other occasions as may present themselves, and thus observe the tenor of your instructions.”

All the same Rinuccini returned to Kilkenny in triumph, imprisoned most of the Supreme Council, and formed another entirely subservient to him, of which he constituted himself the President. He next excommunicated all adherents of the peace, though eight of the Bishops, including his own nominee De Burgo, Archbishop of Tuam, and the Jesuits and Carmelites, in fact all the regular clergy except the Dominicans and Capuchins, held the censures to be invalid, and appealed against them to Rome.

A plot was now formed for the escape of Charles from the Scots to Rinuccini and the clerical party and the joint armies of O’Neill and Preston, who were now reconciled by the Nuncio, marched to besiege Dublin.

Rinuccini must now have not only a Supreme Council but a Lord Lieutenant of his own. Glamorgan when first he arrived had brought a document sealed with the King’s private signet appointing him Lord Lieutenant in the event of Ormond’s death or misconduct, and Glamorgan now qualified himself for the office of Viceroy by swearing complete submission to the Nuncio. He would do no act without his approval, and would be ready to resign his office at any time into Rinuccini’s hands. Rinuccini thought the opportunity of installing him would soon occur.

Ormond’s position was indeed now desperate. The defences of Dublin were dilapidated, and he had neither provisions nor ammunition. The King had been surrendered to the Parliament by the Scots, his cause was hopeless, and Parliamentary cruisers swarmed on the Irish coasts. Ormond accordingly, having been always in the English interest, appealed to the Parliament for help, and offered to surrender to them. Meanwhile O’Neill and Preston quarrelled outright, and on a false alarm that Parliamentary troops had arrived, the siege was raised. O’Neill and the Nuncio retired to Kilkenny, while Preston remained and commenced still another negotiation with Ormond. The Parliament had refused Ormond’s conditions of surrender, and he was now willing to make a treaty which should unite the English Royalists with the moderate Catholic party on the basis of toleration under the King’s authority against Rinuccini on the one hand, and the Puritans on the other. Rinuccini threatened Preston with excommunication, and Preston who had boasted of being “excommunication proof,” hastened to Kilkenny. Ormond then put an end to his anomalous position by surrendering Dublin to the agents of the Parliament on July 28, 1647, and joined the other Royalist refugees in France.

Rinuccini’s supremacy in the Council did not remain long undisputed. The moderate party were crushed only temporarily. On the meeting of the General Assembly the old Council were released from prison, and the feud between the two parties was more furious than ever, swords being drawn in the council chamber. The Parliamentary commander of Dublin, Michael Jones, marched to the relief of Trim and defeated Preston with a loss of five thousand men and all his guns and baggage. In the South, Inchiquin, at present for the Parliament, had taken Cahir, and attacked Cashel, which he burnt, shooting hundreds of the inhabitants and twenty priests who had crowded into the cathedral, and when attacked in his turn by the Munster army under Lord Taaffe at Knockanos, the Confederate forces were completely routed and their camp and artillery captured.

And now the whole scene became still more confusing, all parties seeming to change into new and kaleidoscopic combinations. Inchiquin who thought he had not been rewarded sufficiently by the Parliament, and having after all more sympathy with Irish than English proprietors, made overtures to Preston. Ormond was approached in Paris and a coalition was formed against the Parliament between the moderate Confederates and the Royalists. Rinuccini issuing excommunication against all who countenanced this arrangement, fled to O’Neill’s camp at Maryborough. Preston and O’Neill joined forces and there was civil war between the Confederates. Jones, who suspected many of his own troops of loyalty to Charles, was delighted at this, and so bitter was the hatred between the clerical party and the moderate Catholics that O’Neill and the Nuncio actually went so far as to treat with the Puritan commander for help against their co-religionists at Kilkenny. In October, Monnerie the French agent thought Rinuccini about to fly from Ireland. “Your Eminence,” he wrote to Mazarin, “knows the Nuncio’s inclinations”—doubtless his desire to be in Paris—“and I will merely say that now he receives as many curses from the people as he formerly did plaudits.” In September Glamorgan, now Marquis of Worcester, sailed from Galway to France, and the Nuncio’s troubles were increased by the appearance in October of O’Mahony’s _Apologetic Discussion_ of his conduct. The Nuncio had the book condemned by the magistrates. He returned to Kilkenny only to hear of the defeat at Knockanos. Rinuccini found he had now but little authority, “being now,” says Bellings, “better known, and his excommunications by his often thundering of them grown more cheap.” He retired in disgust to Waterford in January, 1648. Inchiquin took Carrick-on-Suir for the Parliament in February, but declared for the King in April, and endeavoured to come to terms with the Confederates on the basis of the _Status quo ante_, until Ormond should return. Rinuccini, and in this case he was perfectly right, refused to treat with such a blood-stained traitor to every party, but the Supreme Council fearing the growing strength of the English Parliament, in spite of the Nuncio’s protests and threats, made a truce with Inchiquin. Rinuccini at Kilkenny and supported by a majority of the Bishops, then excommunicated all who adhered to the truce, and put the terms concerned under an interdict. The Council appealed to Rome. Rinuccini escaped by night from Kilkenny to O’Neill’s army at Maryborough and thence to Athlone and Galway, where he convened a National Synod, while the clergy opposed to him at Kilkenny declared his censures null and void. The Jesuits, Barefooted or Discalced Carmelites and cathedral clergy were opposed to him, while he was supported by the Franciscans and Dominicans. He bitterly complained of the conduct of the Jesuits, and charged them and their Provincial, Malone, with the greater share of the blame for the loss of Ireland. He even went so far as to declare the Irish people were Catholics only in name. In his instruction to Father Arcamoni, who was to represent him in the appeal to Rome, he says, “It may be, therefore, by the will of God that a people Catholic only in name and so irreverent towards the Church should feel the thunderbolt of the Holy See and draw down upon themselves the anger which is the meed of the scorner.”

Ormond landed at Cork on Michaelmas Day, 1648, and on the 16th of January, 1648-9 concluded a peace with the Supreme Council, consolidating the Royalist interests in Ireland. The Council finally renounced Rinuccini at the beginning of the negotiations, and ordered him to “intermeddle not in any of the affairs of this kingdom.” The Carmelites of Galway having resisted the interdict by which their church was closed, Rinuccini ordered their bell to be pulled down. John De Burgo, a nominee of Rinuccini to the Archbishopric of Tuam, supported the Carmelites, and demanded the Nuncio’s warrant. “_Ego non ostendam_,” said Rinuccini; “_Et ego non obediam_,” retorted De Burgo. The Nuncio was blockaded in Galway by the Catholics Clanricarde acting with the new Royalist Confederation, he being determined that no Synod should be held in Galway in support of the censures. Rinuccini, who had kept a frigate ready, seeing how useless it was to remain longer where he had worn out his welcome, sailed for Havre on 23rd February, 1648-9. He did not proceed to Rome until November. His agents had been supporting his cause against Father Rowe, Provincial of the Carmelites, on the part of the Supreme Council. Rinuccini was received with all the usual honours by the Pope; but Innocent is said to have reproached him in private with rash conduct. In March, 1650, the Pope granted power to certain Bishops to absolve those who had fallen under the Nuncio’s censures, but a general absolution was refused, as it would seem to make the Pope decide that the censures were unjust. Rinuccini was warmly welcomed on his return to Fermo, where he died of apoplexy in 1653.

We have now followed as far as possible within the limits allowed us the history of this most distracting period, and before concluding it may be well to glance back and survey its most distinctive features.

We have seen how the rising of the dispossessed clansmen in the North furnished a pretext for the confiscation of practically the whole of Ireland, irrespective of its share in the rebellion, and how the Parliament was thus enabled to raise money for an invasion to extinguish the Irish nation and put the Subscribers in possession of their security. The Parliament diverted these funds to carrying on its own war against the King. The Confiscation Acts united the hitherto discordant Anglo-Irish and Old-Irish elements in a great national movement for common defence against further religious persecution and further spoliation by a wealthy and powerful neighbouring, but not neighbourly, people. While they acted loyally together they had extended their authority throughout the greater part of the country, and were so near a complete conquest that the English power was brought so low that its representatives were reluctantly compelled to sue for a cessation. A section of the Anglo-Irish Confederates imagining themselves still English, looking only towards England, and never dreaming that a day might come when they with the poet Spenser’s grandsons would be forced to transplant to Connaught as Irish Papists, urged the granting of a truce, and though the Old Irish protested against this throwing away of their advantages, they respected the Oath of Confederation too much to make any violent opposition. By granting the truce, by negotiating at all, the Confederates committed the fatal error from which their future ruin followed. It is all very well to blame Ormond, but he was only doing his duty to his sovereign and his party; the Irish had beaten him to his knees, and their trusted representatives should have kept him there until their position in Ireland at any rate was secured. Had they, disdaining Ormond’s overtures, relentlessly pursued the war to an entirely successful issue—and that they could have done so is evident from O’Neill’s brilliant victory over Monroe at Benburb when their strength was almost exhausted—they would have been in a position to treat with King or Parliament; and, moreover, that Continental assistance they vainly sought when through the Cessation their stability had become doubtful, would not have been withheld. The Parliamentarians in their struggle with the King showed better judgment. When their early efforts for an accommodation with him failed, they destroyed him and came to terms with his son. The Confederates should have avoided all treaties until they were in a position to treat on their own terms with either King or Parliament. On the whole, it might have been better had they been in a position to treat with the latter; but whichever prevailed, Ireland, even without foreign help, but with the prestige of an armed and united nation like the Scots, would have been able to enter into a confederation of the three Kingdoms on honourable conditions, instead of being dragged in, gagged and bound, the victim of violence, fraud, and corruption unsurpassed in the history of nations. The Confederates, however, failed to take the tide of victory when it served, and wasted their time in a series of futile negotiations with a man who certainly had not the power, even if he had the will, to grant them what they haggled for. There is nothing more sad in all Irish History than to read that when Cromwell with a comparatively small army had subjugated Ireland in a few months, 40,000 Irish “swordsmen” took service in foreign countries. They had missed their chance.

Three things, says an Arab proverb, cannot be recalled: “The sped arrow, The spoken word, The lost opportunity.”

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Bibliography

The following works have been freely availed of in preparation of the foregoing paper:—

Gardiner: Hist. Great Civil War, 1642-1649. London, 1893.

Prendergast: The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland. 2nd edition. Dublin, 1875.

Carte: The Life of James, Duke of Ormond. Oxford, 1851.

An Inquiry into the Share which King Charles I. had in the transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan, in which Mr. Carte’s imperfect account of that affair and his use of the MS. Memoirs of the Pope’s Nuncio Rinuccini are impartially considered, 1747. Brit. Museum, under Rinuccini.

Haverty: Hist. Ireland. Dublin, 1859.

Leland: Hist. Ireland. Dublin, 1814.

Walpole: A Short Hist. Kingdom of Ireland. London, 1885.

Gilbert, Sir J. T.: Contemporary Hist. Affairs in Ireland, 1641-1652. Dublin, Irish Archæological Society, 1879.

Gilbert, Sir J. T.: Hist. Irish Confederation. Dublin, 1882.

The Aphorismal Discovery of Treasonable Faction. Ed. Gilbert.

Meehan: The Confederation of Kilkenny. Dublin, 1882.

Aizzi: Nunziatura in Irlanda di Monsignor G. B. Rinuccini, negli anni 1645-1649. Firenze, 1844.

Hutton: The Embassy in Ireland, etc. (Translation of foregoing). Dublin, 1873.

Dublin: BROWNE & NOLAN, LTD., Printers.

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● Transcriber’s note:

○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

○ Unpaired quotation marks were left as in the original text.

○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.

○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.