CAMEO XXIX. Tidings from Ireland. 1641. the last letter Murray had carried, Montrose declared "that he could acquaint his Majesty with a business which not only did concerne his honour, in a heigh degree, but the standing and falling of his Croune lykwayes." Montrose was examined on the meaning of these words, but he persisted in declaring that, he only meant the peace and quiet of the public, and would never wrong nor accuse any individual whatsomever. Nothing at all was made out farther, but there was increasing need of the King's return, for at this very juncture tidings arrived of a terrible rebellion in Ireland. IRELAND had never been so quiet or so prosperous as under Strafford's administration, during which the Roman Catholics were free from molestation, and the English were withheld from violence and oppression. Changes however set in when he was recalled. The men to whom the Government was entrusted as Lords Justices were Sir William Parsons, already known for his rapacity, and Sir John Borlase, Master of the Ordnance, a mere soldier, both in sympathy with the English Parliament. The Puritan denunciations against Popery, and the persecution renewed in England against the Romanists, created a great alarm in Ireland; and at the same time the Scottish successes encouraged the belief that a rising in arms might be the means of gaining all that was desired. If Presbyterianism had won its way by a League and Covenant, why should not Romanism do the same? A large number of priests had come to Ireland, and many young men who had been sent abroad for education. Both alike dreaded the revival of the penal laws, and fear and hope alike led to a resolution to break out into open resistance after the Scottish example. Tyrone's son, with many others of their countrymen, were in the Spanish service, ready to assist any enterprise against the English, and Cardinal de Richelieu was always ready to foment any disturbance that could weaken the English power. The chief mover in the scheme was Rory, or, as the English called him, Roger, O'More of Ballynagh, in county Kildare. He was descended from a family who had been dispossessed with much cruelty from Leix; but he was allied to English families, and was a welleducated gentleman, one of those brilliant and attractive persons always to be found at the outset of an Irish rebellion, and extremely CAMEO XXX. Irish disaffection. 1641. САМЕО Plot of Rory beloved, so that the Irish saying was, that hope lay in God, our Lady and Rory O'More. Sir Phelim O'Neil of Kinard had been educated by his guardians as a Protestant, and had studied at Lincoln's Inn; but he had returned to the Romish Church, and as he was the nearest in blood to the childless Earl of Tyrone in the Spanish service, he was looked on by the O'Neils as their head. To these was added Richard Plunkett, who held the rank of Colonel in the Spanish army in Flanders. In February, 1641, just after the imprisonment of Strafford, Rory O'More repaired to Connor, Baron Macguire, a man who held an English pension in compensation for the reduction of the family estates in Enniskillen, but who was dissipated and discontented. According to the account he afterwards gave, Rory O'More suggested to him that the disturbed state of England was the fit opportunity for an Irish insurrection; and then, in a meeting with several more Irish gentlemen of Ulster then in Derry, it was agreed that each should communicate with his own friends, and send tidings to the Irish in Spain and Flanders of the day on which the rising should be made, so that they might be there in time with arms and ammunition. The time was to be late in the autumn, both that there might be time to get supplies of money from the Pope and King of Spain, and that the weather might make it difficult to brings troops from England. The plot went on spreading, greatly encouraged by a Spanish colonel, Neil O'Neil, who had a conference with Cardinal de Richelieu on his way to Ireland, and arrived full of promises of continental support. He was sent back with an invitation to Tyrone to be in Ireland ten days before All Hallows, to join the army which was to restore him, if not make him King of Ulster. The English Lords of the Pale had sent a deputation to the King to demand the graces that Strafford had promised them. It was graciously received, and Lord Gormanstown, who headed it, treated with special favour. At the same time, Charles, who was most unwilling to lose the services of those 8,000 men whom Strafford had trained, sent private instructions to the Earls of Ormond and Antrim to enlist them again under trustworthy officers, as if for the King of Spain, and endeavour to secure the castle of Dublin, where there were arms for 12,000 men. The officers, Theobald Taaffe, George Porter, Gerald Barry and others, tried to obtain other men, and their plan thus became known to the conspirators in Ulster, who fancied they would make common cause with them, while on the other hand the English of the Pale began to have suspicions. In fact, there were three parties in Ireland-the royalists, headed by Ormond, as commander-in-chief; the Parliamentarian party, favoured by the Lord Justices Parsons and Borlase; and the native Irish, with Rory O'More as their leader. The royalists, being secretly instructed by the King, did not appear to have so much right on their side as did those who held by the Lords Justices and the English Parliament, and both the latter and the Irish would willingly have identified the royal party with that of the natives. The Lords Justices and their council often received warning that there were meetings of Roman Catholic gentlemen at the houses of Sir Phelim O'Neil and Lord Macguire; Strafford would immediately have put these persons under restraint, and probably nipped the conspiracy in the bud, but Parsons only wished the rebellion to break out, so as to enable him to reap a harvest of confiscations of the estates of the leaders. Nothing was done, however, till the evening of the 2nd of October, when a gentleman named Owen O'Conolly asked to see Sir William Parsons at Chichester House. He was a Protestant, and agent to Sir John Clotworthy, but his Irish connections had fancied he would be on their side, and Hugh Og MacMahon, who was then at Dublin, had sent for him and had disclosed a scheme for seizing the Castle, as well as all the other forts, that very night, by a general rising. Parsons did not quite believe him, being probably used to such reports, and sent him back to get more from MacMahon. Borlase however was alarmed, the Council was collected, the Castle was guarded, and O'Conolly was watched for anxiously, but night came on without his appearance, and at last one of Parsons' servants met him, very tipsy, in the hands of the watch. He was brought in, though in such a condition that it was long before he could be understood, but it became known that he had found MacMahon preparing for the exploit by a revel, at which, to disarm suspicion, he had been obliged to drink so much, that when at last he managed to escape over the wall of the court, he could scarcely stand or speak. On his information, however, Macguire and MacMahon were arrested, with about thirty more persons of no consequence. Rory O'More, Hugh Byrne and Colonel Plunkett all made their escape across the river on the first alarm. MacMahon and Macguire made full confession before the Council, and just then arrived Sir Francis Willoughby, an old soldier, and Governor of Galway. He told the Justices that he thought them in great danger in a place like Chichester House, since the population of Dublin numbered fifteen Romanists to one Protestant, and great numbers of armed strangers had been coming in all the day before. Nor were there any walls or fortifications, although there were gates, the keys of which the Council had secured! He advised them at once to withdraw into the Castle. And there he found the whole garrison consisted of eight feeble old warders, and forty halberdiers who used to escort the Lords Justices to church. For a whole fortnight, Sir Francis never suffered the drawbridge to be let down except with all the guard present. Nor did he ever go to bed, but slept on the Council table with his head on a cushion. This prevented the first surprise, and two hundred soldiers of Strafford's army were secured for the defence, while English settlers, flying into Dublin for refuge, enabled Colonel Crawford to form a regiment for its defence. There were constant alarms. People declared that they had actually CAMEO XXX. Warning. CAMEO The Rising. 1641. seen 10,000 men on the hill of Tara, only sixteen miles away, ready to march upon Dublin; and when an ordinary Irish row was going on in the street, a gentleman rushed into the Castle with the news that the rebels had mastered a whole quarter of the city. Many persons packed up their goods and embarked for England; but the season was so tempestuous that they were kept tossing in the Bay of Dublin, as were also 400 soldiers from Strafford's army who had been enlisted for Spain. The rising began on the 22nd of October, with a horrible act of treachery on the part of Sir Phelim O'Neil towards Sir Toby Caulfield, a very old man, Governor of the fort of Charlemont, on the Blackwater. Sir Phelim invited himself "to come a gossiping with him," and, with the hospitality of the country, the Castle doors were unsuspiciously thrown open to all followers who might desire to carouse with the garrison. As soon as a sufficient number had thus come in, the signal was given; they turned on their hosts, and the old man, with all his family, servants and soldiers, were slaughtered at once, very few escaping, while Sir Phelim marched on and seized Dungannon. Throughout the open country in Ulster, the little forts and houses of English or Scotch settlers were mastered by the insurgents, and all the inhabitants who could not escape were massacred, although in most cases the Irish leaders endeavoured to restrain their barbarous followers. Only Derry, Coleraine, Lisnagarvy, and Carrickfergus held out, and received the fugitives who could make their way thither. These, whenever they could, retaliated on the Irish as if they had been so many wild beasts, and it is reckoned that about 5,000 human beings were slain on each side. The rebels, under a gentleman named Philip O'Reilly, mastered County Cavan comparatively without bloodshed, and that only in fair fight, all non-combatants, even when Protestants, being taken care of. Dr. Bedell, the aged Bishop of Kilmore, was made prisoner and shut up in Laughouter Castle, a ruinous tower in the middle of a lake, where he remained for twenty days. He was afterwards allowed to return to his own house, where he died from the hardships he had endured. He was much respected, and when the Roman Catholic prelate, who had come to take possession of his see, would fain have prevented his burial in consecrated ground, a priest, who had known his excellence, exclaimed, 'Oh, may my soul be with Bedell's!" The gentlemen on the other hand, permitted the English funeral service to be used, assembled in great numbers to attend, and ended by firing a salute over his grave, shouting, "Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum." Archbishop Ussher was in England. His country houses were plundered, but his library, plate, and jewels escaped, being in Drogheda. All the other Bishops fled to England, except Archbishop Bulkeley of Dublin, Bishops Martin of Meath, Leslie of Raphoe, Jones of Killaloe, and Webb of Limerick, the last of whom was made prisoner and died in captivity. Horrible deeds were done on the unhappy country clergy and their families. The head of one was set up on the market-cross at |