Of all the leading men in Ireland, who had given the most virulently into the usurpation, were Lord Broghill, and Sir Charles Coote: they during the whole interregnum were presidents of Munster and Connaught; they had been the occasion of taking away more lives in cold blood from the year 1641, than any other men in Ireland, if we except the orders of Cromwell at Drogheda and Wexford: but no sooner did they perceive the turn of the scale in favour of royalty, than they became as prominent in their offers to Charles, as they had been zealous in their services to Cromwell: and Charles in the full glow of his family passion for rewarding his enemies, created Broghill Earl of Orrery; and Coote Earl of Montrath; and appointed them lords justices of Ireland.* Sir Maurice Eustace (an old and particular friend of the Marquis of Ormond, says Carte) was at the same time made lord high chancellor. By the advice, management, and contrivance of these four persons, (all determined enemies to the Irish Catholics) was the whole settlement of that kingdom conducted. Commissioners were sent by this party to the king to forward their grand design, which was to call a new parliament, into which no Catholic either peer or commoner should be admitted, in which should be granted a general pardon and indemnity to all Protestants: and in which all the Cromwellians should be secured in their possessions, and the Irish effectually prevented from recovering their estates. The parliament which was convened was so constituted, as to command by a most decided majority whatever measure might be proposed for carrying these expedients into effect: but in order the more surely to effectuate their purpose, and to prevent even a debate on the question, all Catholic members, though not at that time disqualified to sit and vote in parliament, were excluded by the self assumed power of each house: the commons having passed a resolution " that no member should be quali"fied to sit in their house, but such as had taken the oaths of "allegiance and supremacy:" and the speaker of the house of peers (Bramhall, archbishop of Armagh) having proposed a re "These two Earls had been, says Clarendon, eminently against the king: "but upon this turn, when all other powers were down, were eminently for "him. But the king had not then power to chuse any against whom some as With them there were too "material objections might not be made. "many others, upon whom honours were conferred; upon some, that they might do no harm, who were thereby enabled to do the more." Clar. Life, 2 v. p. 219. Clarendon (to his own cost ultimately) was a warm encourager of this Stuart principle. †This House of Commons consisted of 260 members, of which all but 64 were burgesses: and Cromwell bad filled all the corporations throughout the kingdom, insomuch that they were then all of his party and spirit. In the House of Peers there were about twenty-one Catholic peers and seventy-two Protestant peers, besides twenty-four bishops: their list as it stood in 1688 may be seen App. No. XXXIX. solution which passed their house "that all the members thereof "should receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper from his grace's own hands." With the like view of preventing the Irish Catholics from sending over agents to England to oppose or counteract the state commissioners as they were then called, who were soliciting the English parliament to except the Irish Catholics out of the act of oblivion and general pardon, the convention at Dublin put in execution all the severe laws and ordinances made by the Usurper; by which the Catholics were prevented from going from one province to another, to transact their business, such as had the more considerable estates were imprisoned, all their letters to and from the capital were intercepted: the gentry were forbidden to meet, and were thereby deprived of the means of agreeing upon agents to take care of their interests, and of an opportunity to represent their grievances at the foot of the throne. The stale device of contriving new Popish conspiracies and rebellions was resorted to, in order to alarm the English parliament into the measure of excluding the Irish Catholics from the general pardon, and quieting possessions in Ireland: Charles published a proclamation for apprehending and prosecuting all Irish rebels, (a term now generally adopted as synonymous with Irish Catholics) and commanding, that adventurers, soldiers, and others who were possessed of any lands, should not be disturbed in their possessions, until legally evicted, or his majesty, by advice of parliament, should take further order therein. Carte, Leland, and indeed all our historians agree, that the most aggravated, extravagant and unfounded reports against the Irish, were brought to England, and there received with the utmost avidity, and circulated with every accumulation of inventive selfishness and malice, by incredible numbers of projectors, suitors, sufferers, claimants, solicitors, pretenders, and petitioners who thronged the court, and looked to the Irish forfeitures as the sure fund for realizing their various speculations. Such however was the effect produced by these manœuvres or other means, which have now escaped the eye of the public, that when the state commissioners from Ireland petitioned both houses of parliament in England to exclude the Irish Catholics from the general indemnity, the Duke of Ormond opposed it, alleging, that his majesty had reserved the cognizance of that matter to himself, though it were notorious, that the king but some days before in his speech to parliament had informed them," that he expected (in relation to the Irish) "they would have a care of his honour, and of the promise he "had made them." And they were accordingly excluded, to Viz. Explicitly from Breda through the Marquis of Ormond. "That he "would perform all grants and concessions which he had either made or pro their ruin, the exultation and triumph of their enemies, and the astonishment of all impartial men. Ormond resumed the government of Ireland, and by him were framed and settled the king's declaration, the acts of settlement and explanation, and by him was made out the list of the persons excepted by name* out of the ruinous effects of the act of settlement. By him was recommended the Court of Claims, and under his influence were appointed the first members of it, whose interested partiality and corruption became too rank even for their patron to counteHe then substituted men of real respectability to fill their places, but so stinted them in their time for going through the claims of the dispossessed proprietors, (notwithstanding the few cases under which their innocency could be admitted) that when they applied for an enlargement of time in order to go through several thousands of unheard claims, Ormond opposed the application, and rejected a clause in the bill for the relief of these unheard claimants.† Under these different circumstances, the representation of this whole transaction made by the highest legal authority in the last parliament of Ireland is the more singular, as it immediately followed an opinion, that Cromwell's conduct in Ireland was essentially advantageous to the British empire." "But," says his lordship," admitting the "principle of this declaration in its fullest extent, it is impossi"ble to defend the acts of settlement and explanation, by which "it was carried into effect." "The act of settlement professes to have for its object, the "execution of his majesty's gracious declaration for the settle"ment of his kingdom of Ireland, and the satisfaction of the "several interests of adventurers, soldiers, and other his sub"jects there and after reciting the rebellion, the enormities "committed in the progress of it, and the final reduction of "the rebels, by the king's English and Protestant subjects, by "a general sweeping clause vests in the king, his heirs and "successors, all estates real and personal, of every kind whatso "mised them by that peace: and which as he had new instances of their loy"alty and affection to him, he should study rather to enlarge, than diminish "or infringe in the least degree." They are about 500 in all; they being the leaders of the noxious party, their merit takes off the guilt of the rest who suffered. † So sensible was Ormond at this time of the injustice he was working against his countrymen, whom he hated on account of their religion, that he thus expressed himself on the subject to Clarendon : (C. O. 3. vol.) "If you look upon the composition of this council and parliament, you will not “think it probable, that the settlement of Ireland can be made with much "favour or indeed reasonable regard to the Irish. If it be, it will not pass : " and if it be not, we must look for all the clamour that can be raised by un"done men." The ingratitude and injustice of this conduct to the Irish was too glaring for Ormond not to wish to throw the odium of it upon his creatures, Speech of Lord Clare. "ever in the kingdom of Ireland, which at any time from the Certain it is, that strong prepossessions are entertained by many to this day, in favour of Ormond and his conduct both to the king and his countrymen. Historical justise can judge only from facts either satisfactorily proved, or admitted on all hands. We have traced his conduct up to the present period. When the sympathy and justice of his royal master balanced between the claims of the English Protestants, and the Irish Catholics, Ormond's efforts to bias the king in favour of the former, could not fail to be successful with a Stuart, because the latter had been ever faithful to his interests, and the former had been the avowed enemies of himself and family. So far was Ormond from having suffered by these rebellions, insurrections, or civil wars in Ireland, that we read in a letter from the Earl of An. glesey to the Earl of Castlehaven, published in the latter's memoirs during Ormond's own life (A. D. 1681); "that his grace (he was then raised to the dignity of a duke)† and his "family, by the forfeiture and punishment of the Irish were "the greatest gainers of the kingdom, and had added to their "inheritance vast scopes of land, and a revenue three times greater than what his paternal estate was before the rebellion, "and that most of his encrease was out of their estates, who "adhered to the peaces of 1646, and 1648, or served under his "majesty's ensigns abroad." During the remainder of Charles's reign, many malicious attempts were made to stigmatize the Irish with fresh rebellions: which always served as pretexts for enforcing the execution of the penal laws against the Catholics. Ormond was worked out of favour by the This authority is the stronger by how much the intimacy and friendship of Lord Anglesey were the greater for Ormond; and we are informed by Leland, after Carte, that when the Duke of Buckingham was endeavouring to supplant Ormond in the king's favour, and made overtures to the Earl of Anglesey for that purpose, the earl rejected these overtures with indignation, and gave Ormond notice of the designs formed against him. 3 Lel. p. 453. It will however, be candid to apprize the reader of what Ormond himself had to offer in justification of his own conduct, which he has done in the letter he Wrote to his majesty, with his reason for quitting the government of Ireland, for which see the App. No. XL. An anonymous writer in 1674, in a pamphlet called the Unkind Deserter, asserted, that " Ormond's estate before the war cleared but 70007. per annum, "it was so heavily charged with annuities and leases, but that it was worth "40,000l. per annum, and that it was at that time (1674) close upon 80,000. per annum. Now the first part of his new great revenues, is the king's "grant of all those lands of his own estates which were leased or mortgaged : "the rest were grants of other men's estates and other gifts of his majesty. "His gifts and grants are thought to amount to 630,000/." p. 161-2. All these gifts were confirmed by parliament. The printer of this pamphlet was imprisoned at the suit of Ormond, but no answer to it was ever attempted. From whence his lordship justly concluded, that his grace could not "have been very sincere in making either of these peaces with the Irish: but "that whatever moved him thereto, whether compassion, natural affection, or “ any thing else, he was in judgment and conscience against them: and so has "he since appeared and hath advantage by their laying asitle." Cast. Mem. uibi supra. Ormond, who probably was conscious of the king's disposition and secret wishes to favour the Catholics, did all he could to raise divisions amongst them, by dividing the clergy upon a punctilious form of oath, by which it was then in contemplation to allow the Catholics to express their allegiance to their sovereign. The declaration of the great body of the clergy, which Ormond rejected, may be seen in the App. No. XLI. Not contented with the indig |