Royalist, Roundhead and Catholic. 1603-1660

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CHAPTER VIII***

A Triangular Duel - Royalist, Roundhead and Catholic *- 1603-1660

“Such as do build their faith* *upon

The holy text of pike and gun; …

Call fire and sword and desolation,

A godly, thorough reformation,

And prove their doctrines orthodox

By apostolic blows and knocks.”

-Butler.

Dublin was fortunate enough to escape the centre of the tornado of war, which traversed Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth. The raids of the Border tribes were annoying, but did little serious harm. The great leaders of the Irish did not make any determined attempt on the city. At the same time, as the whole of the country came under one authority, the importance of the capital increased with each accession of territory.

Dublin gradually lost its character of being an English fortified post in the midst of the Irish enemy. It came to acknowledge itself as the metropolis of the nation, which was slowly forming Out of the union of the native Celts with their Norman and English invaders. Long regarded as an alien city by most Irishmen, it now came to be the very heart and brain of the kingdom. Its trade had been much helped by the pacification of North Wales. Chester and Liverpool, released from the fear of raids on their flanks, developed into commercial ports devoted to the Irish trade. Dublin was their most convenient harbour on the opposite shore, and soon began to surpass Waterford, the Irish port of entry for the older southern route by Bristol or New Milford.

The commerce of the city increased greatly. The value of the customs rose so much that it was found necessary to construct a Custom House for their receipt. The dangerous bar which lies across the mouth of the harbour was marked by a buoy, and, a little later, steps were taken towards erecting a light-house or tower on the same spot.

The municipality became wealthy and enlightened. New civic officials appeared. There was a city band of musicians, which played thrice a week through the chief streets gratis, a city physician, schoolmaster and train of artillery. There were even attempts at sanitation and protection from fire. The trade of the weavers, afterwards so prominent in Dublin history, was now first organised. The mayoral hospitality rose to a pitch never reached since.

During his tenure of office, one Sarsfield kept open house to all comers from five in the morning till ten at night. His salary for the year was but £20, and his expenses £500 - a sum which then had ten times its present purchasing power.

The citizens were not induced by their new prosperity to neglect the old religion, to which many of them still clung. The Catholics were still both powerful and numerous. With the connivance of the authorities, they had often been able to evade the occasional persecutions of Elizabeth, The accession of James I., son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, awoke hopes of a toleration, if not a restoration, of their form of worship. They drew up a petition for freedom of conscience, which, however, was so unlucky as to be presented on the very day that news arrived of the celebrated Gunpowder Plot, in which their English co-religionists were believed to be implicated.

No change could be made in the law at such a time. The statutes remained as repressive as before, and Dublin men of note were again fined for non-attendance at church. But, as often happens in Ireland, a harsh edict was rendered practically nugatory by the mildness of the executive. The total fines in a year only amounted to some £14.** **If a viceroy insisted on prosecution, juries acquitted the accused in spite of the terrors of a court called Castle Chamber, the Irish equivalent of the Star Chamber.

In 1613 the first parliament, representing the whole country, as distinct from the English Pale, met in Dublin. The authorities, knowing the preponderance of Catholics among the people, had taken measures to secure a Protestant majority. Forty new boroughs, each returning two members, were created for the occasion, mostly in Ulster, which had lately been colonised from end to end with Scots and Englishmen.

The upper house was composed of fifty peers, of whom 25 were Protestant bishops. The Catholics were surprised and annoyed to find them-selves in a minority, and a violent scene took place over the election of a Speaker. Votes were recorded in those days, not by both parties filing into lobbies, but by the “Ayes” leaving the chamber and being numbered outside, while the “Noes” remained inside to be counted.

The Protestants, in support of their motion for the appointment of Sir John Davies, the historian, had gone out. Their opponents, left in possession, neglected to vote on the question before them and employed the interval by placing their own nominee, Sir John Everard, in actual physical occupation of the chair, surrounded by a ring of his partisans.

The “Ayes” returned in high wrath, and a regular *melée *took place in the House. The rival Speakers must have suffered severely, for they were the gages of battle on either side. Davies was borne aloft by his supporters and deposited in the very lap of Everard. Finally the Catholics retreated from the House, declining to take any further part in the proceedings. The viceroy, finding progress impossible, prorogued the parliament.

Two years later there was a convocation of the Protestant clergy in Dublin. Under the influence of the celebrated Ussher, 104 articles of religion were drawn up to represent the teachings of the Church of Ireland. These were so markedly Calvinistic in tone as to be somewhat displeasing to the King, but they remained in force until abrogated by Laud, who substituted for them the familiar 39 Articles of England. However, Irish Protestantism had contracted a strong leaning towards the austerities of the Puritans. It was unfortunate in many ways, for it rendered impossible any mutual toleration, much less reconciliation, between them and the Roman Catholics, whose head, the Pope, was specially stigmatised as Anti-Christ by one of Ussher’s articles.

The policy of Kings James I. and Charles I. in the religious, as in every other question, was largely controlled by their continual need of money. Charles bargained with the Catholics for a subsidy in return for certain concessions called the “Graces.” The extreme Protestants inveighed against “setting religion to sale,” but their remonstrances went for nothing. Charles obtained £120,000, but, by avoiding the parliament necessary for confirming the Graces, evaded the complete fulfilment of his promises.

However, the Catholics enjoyed for a while a pre carious toleration. Their enemies were irritated beyond measure to see them building convents and churches in Dublin and openly celebrating Mass. A Roman Catholic University was founded in Back Lane. The very name of the street chosen shows that the founders were not desirous that their creation should attract much public attention. They were soon to find how poorly freedom of conscience was guaranteed by the mere word of Charles I., unconfirmed by legislative enactment.

In 1629 Falkland, a tolerant governor, was succeeded by two strongly Protestant lords justices, Lord Ely and Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. The laws enforcing attendance at the service of the Established Church were at once put in motion. The fury of the new administration was especially directed against the monastic orders. The mayor and the Archbishop of Dublin, followed by a file of soldiers, burst into a Franciscan chapel at the hour of Mass. The mayor tore down the paintings and the prelate was proceeding to demolish the pulpit, while his followers arrested the officiating priest. A riot ensued between the angry congregation and the soldiers. The prisoners were rescued and the raiders mobbed and pelted back through the streets. The government, in retaliation, closed 16 monasteries in the city and suppressed the college in Back Lane.

In 1633 the most autocratic viceroy of all, Thomas Wentworth, afterward Earl of Strafford, was sent over by the King. He was a thoroughly loyal servant to his monarch. Careless of everything else, he pursued his great aims of building up an armed force and a steady revenue in Ireland to aid the King in his struggle with the English parliament. The Catholics could obtain a relaxation of the laws against “recusants” by a liberal contribution to the royal coffers. The authority of the King was exalted in every transaction of the State.

The Corporation of Dublin claimed an ancient exemption from the duty of maintaining soldiers. Strafford bluntly told them that ” Ireland was a conquered country and the King could give them whatever laws he pleased.” The recorder pleaded the ancient rights of the city, but the viceroy, with a sneer at “old antiquated charters,” assured him that they were only of what value his majesty pleased. The proud civic officials resisted, but were dismissed from their positions and flung into gaol by order of the Castle Chamber, not to be released until they paid enormous fines** **running into thousands of pounds.

boylemon.gif (20084 bytes)Even the nobility could not withstand the browbeating governor. The Boyle monument, erected to the memory of the family of the Earl of Cork, was ejected from the chancel of S Patrick’s, where it had horrified Laud by usurping the place of the high altar. The earl’s consequent enmity for Strafford had a great share in bringing about the downfall of the great minister.

One Irish lord had the courage to defy the terrible “Black Tom,” as the people, with their usual genius for a nickname, had styled him. The young Marquis of Ormond felt his order insulted by a regulation that peers attending the parliament in Dublin should come without arms. He haughtily refused to surrender his sword to Black Rod, and, when it was again demanded, threatened that the pertinacious official should receive the weapon, not in his hand, but thrust through his body. Strafford summoned the recalcitrant before his council. Ormond made the clever defence that he was summoned as a “belted earl,” one “cinctus gladio,” or “girt with a sword.” The viceroy accepted the plea and took Ormond into favour, either liking his high spirit, or not wishing to make an enemy of the chief of the great Butler family.

In 1640 Strafford left Ireland, destined, though he knew it not, to be betrayed by his master to a shameful death at the hands of his enemies. His rule in Ireland was not unsuccessful, though his methods could not be defended. For his own ends he had granted toleration to the Catholics. In conjunction with Laud, he had repressed the laxity of the Irish Church, driving the revellers from the crypt of Christ Church and the gossips and loungers from its vaulted aisles.

Laud had also reconstituted Trinity College on the lines followed at Oxford. Strafford had brought over in his train the English dramatic poet, James Shirley, and soon provided his protege with a field wherein to display his talents. The long and interesting annals of the stage in Dublin commence with the establishment of the first city theatre, in Werburgh Street, in 1635.

The seeds of revolt had, however, been sown by one part of Strafford’s policy. Colonies, or “plantations,” as they were called, brought in money to the Crown, though they gave rise to bitter and murderous feuds between the new settlers and the dispossessed natives, who were thus ousted to make room for strangers.

The landless men often became outlaws, lurking in dark glens in the hills or in the woody fastnesses of the bogs, from whence they conducted a war of savage reprisal. These were the robbers or “Tories” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose name was afterwards transferred to one of the great English political parties. Strafford had “planted” with a reckless disregard of the rights of the original holders, who saw themselves ejected by the high hand of the viceroy, or quibbled out of their lands by the subtleties of his lawyers.

Despairing of redress, the unhappy men formed a project for expelling the planters by a simultaneous and universal rising all over Ireland. The castle of Dublin was to be surprised on the 23rd of October 1641. To the Ulstermen, under Sir Phelim O’Neill, a nephew of the great Tyrone, was assigned the attack on the north or main gate in Cork Hill. The Leinstermen, led by representatives of two tribes, which had suffered much from confiscations, namely, the Wicklow O’Byrnes and the Queen’s County O’Moores, were to assault the south gate near Ship Street.

On the same day every English castle and fortress in Ireland was to be assailed. The citadel of Dublin would have been a rich and an easy prize. Within its crumbling walls were stored 1500** barrels of powder, 10,000 **stand of arms, and 35 field-pieces, under the slender protection of eight aged warders and the viceroy’s ornamental bodyguard of forty halberdiers.

A mere chance saved the unsuspecting lords justices from ruin. M’Mahon, one of the conspirators, while carousing with a certain O’Connolly on the eve of the attempt, was indiscreet enough to boast of his designs. O’Connolly was not so drunk as not to recognise the gravity of this intelligence, and, slipping out of the house on some pretence, went straight to the lord justice, Sir William Parsons, and revealed the whole plot.

Parsons paid little attention to what seemed the maunderings of a half-drunken man, and dismissed O’Connolly after a brief interview. But a consultation with his colleague, Borlase, a veteran soldier, altered his views, and it was decided to send men to seek out O’Connolly and to arrest M’Mahon and the others. The former was easily found, for he had fallen into the hands of the watch on emerging from Parsons’ house. M’Mahon was captured, but most of his fellows escaped.

While he was waiting to undergo his preliminary examination his guards were amazed to see their prisoner drawing figures of men hanged on gibbets or lying prostrate on the ground. His sardonic humour may have been busy with thoughts of his own probable fate, but, in the light of subsequent events, this strange choice of a subject was interpreted as showing that the captive was already gloating in anticipation over the cruel massacres, which marked the successes of the rebels in Ulster.

The insurrection had hung fire in Leinster, but the lords justices had been thoroughly frightened during the night of panic and helplessness, which had lasted from the discovery of the plot until the unexpected arrival of reinforcements early next morning. Timidity is often the parent of cruelty. Their needless severities drove the loyal Catholics into revolt. under the name of the “Confederation of Kilkenny” they set up what was practically an independent government, which held sway over the greater part of Ireland.

Ormond became Lord Lieutenant in 1644. His rule barely extended a score of miles from Dublin. Ulster was divided between Phelim O’Neill’s warriors and an invading army of Scottish Presbyterians under Munro. The authority of the confederation was respected all over the South. Ormond discharged his difficult task with great vigour and ability. He lacked both money and men for the defence even of the capital. The city was called on to furnish funds at the rate of hundreds of pounds weekly, while the viceroy spent £13,000** **of his private fortune.

His wife headed a party of noble ladies who brought with their own hands baskets of earth to build ramparts behind the tottering walls of the town. The Catholic generals, Owen Roe O’Neill and Preston, blockaded Dublin itself, and harried the county, until the citizens could count no less than 200 fires from their church steeples. Ormond lay quiet in his lines, and the besiegers were at length compelled to draw off for lack of supplies.

In the meantime, the Parliamentary party, completely victorious in England, turned its attention to the sister country. Harassed on all sides, the faithful viceroy could not contend with this fourth antagonist. In 1647, by the direction of the King, and with the consent of the Irish parliament and council, he delivered up the sword of state to commissioners from England, and sought an honourable exile in France.

The execution of the King in 1649 caused a sudden revulsion among many of those who had hitherto silently acquiesced in the triumph of the Parliament. Ormond returned to Ireland, and put himself at the head of the Royalist army, which was now reinforced by many Catholics offended at the religious fury of the Puritans. It fell to his lot to besiege the very city’ which he had defended with such spirit.

But Dublin was now garrisoned by soldiers of the new Cromwellian type, commanded by Michael Jones, an uncouth and austere fanatic, but an excellent general. For some reason or other, Prince Rupert, the famous cavalry leader, now turned admiral, refused to lend his ships to cut off Jones’s supplies by a blockade of the harbour. Ormond encamped first at Castleknock, then at Finglas. Acting from this base, he succeeded in taking Dundalk and Drogheda.

However, his great aim was to get near enough to the entrance of the port to control all approach to the city by water. His troops reached Rathmines, with the intention of working round to Ringsend, from which point any ship trying to enter the Liffey could be sunk by cannon shot. Ormond planned a night attack on Baggotrath Castle, near the present Baggot Street, with a view to mounting guns there, and rendering it impossible for Jones to graze his cavalry horses on the city commons at Stephen’s Green.

It proved a complete failure. The troops took all night to march a single mile. In the morning the better-disciplined Parliamentarians advanced and routed them with ridiculous ease. Ormond hardly knew the battle had begun before the fugitives came pouring past his tent.

Twelve days later, on the 14th August 1649, Oliver Cromwell with a large army landed at Dublin, determined to restore order and punish offenders with the utmost severity. The capital, which had just proved its faithfulness to the new *régime, *was kindly treated; but its near neighbour, Drogheda, was taken by storm, and the defenders put to the sword, together with many friars and non-combatant townsmen. This massacre, with the similar scene enacted at Wexford, left an indelible mark on Cromwell’s reputation.

With a cold-hearted barbarity that mars his undoubted claims as a statesman and general, he records how some of the vanquished fled to the steeple of a church, which was immediately, by his orders, set on fire. He was near enough to note the cries of his victims, for he heard one poor wretch say, “Damn me, I burn, I burn.”

Still, with all his cruelty towards Irish Royalists and Catholics, a terrible, resistless savagery, which so impressed the natives that the “curse o’ Crummle” is even now a bitter imprecation in the South, he sometimes showed an insight into Irish problems. He was the first to convene a parliament for the whole of the British Isles, Ireland and Scotland as well as England. In 1654 Dublin returned its mayor as representative of the borough in a united parliament of the three kingdoms at Westminster.

During the troubled interval between the death of “grim old Oliver” and the restoration of the Stuarts, Dublin showed itself once more Royalist. A party of officers suspected of favouring that cause seized the Castle and, finding themselves driven from thence by Sir Hardress Waller, rode through the streets loudly calling for “a free parliament.” Their cause was warmly espoused by the citizens. After a siege of five days Waller surrendered, and was sent to England under escort. The officers now openly avowed themselves in favour of a Restoration, and Charles II. was soon proclaimed king in Dublin.

Williamite and Jacobite. 1660-1702. To Chart Index. Home.