.flu 
 
ULSTER CIVIL WAR OF 1641, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
THE ULSTER CIVIL WAR OF 1641, 
 
 AND 
 
 ITS CONSEQUENCES ; 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE IRISH BRIGADE UNDER 
 MONTROSE IN 1644-46. 
 
 BY 
 
 john McDonnell, m.d^ 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRA** 
 CRXSTNUT KILL, Mas: 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 M. H. GILL & SON, UPPER S ACKVILLE STREET. 
 1879 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
D. WKBB AND PON, PRINTERS, DUBLIN. 
 
Cfjts Sfcetcfr 
 
 IN VINDICATION OF THE CALUMNIATED ULSTER IRISH IN THE WAR OF 
 
 1641 
 
 Is QcotratEti to tfjc fBemorp 
 
 OF 
 
 MA JOE-GENERAL SIR ALEXANDER McDONNELL 
 
 KXIGHT OF TT1E FIELD 
 AND 
 
 HIS HEROIC FELLOW-SOLDIERS OF THE MONTROSE IRISH BRIGADE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Introductory — Critique of Mr. Froude's transcendental principles 
 of international policy, ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The causes of the Ulster Insurrection of 1641 — The manufacture 
 of rebels and traitors in Dublin Castle, by penniless adven- 
 turers, with a view to possess themselves of the forfeited 
 estates of the rebels — Manifesto written by James I. in proof, 
 and absolutely devoid of proof, of a projected rebellion by 
 O'Neill of Tyrone and O'Donnell of Tyrconnell — Condition of 
 the contest between Charles I. and the Long Parliament at 
 the time when the Ulster Irish drew the sword — Character of 
 Parsons, one of the two Lords Justices at this time — Demon- 
 stration of the absolute falsehood of the statements of 
 atrocities perpetrated by the Ulster rebels, in a document 
 presented to the Long Parliament by the Irish Government, 
 and in a letter to King Charles from Sir John Temple — 
 Account of the first Massacres in the County of Antrim, ... 6 
 
 III. 
 
 Narrative of the campaign of the Montrose Irish Brigade — Their 
 six victories, in three of which, in the battles of Tippermuiv, 
 Aberdeen, and Auldern, they constituted fully two-thirds of 
 Montrose's force— In the battles of Inverlochy and Alford 
 they formed about half of the Royalist force ; and in the - 
 battle of Kilsyth alone they were greatly out-numbered by 
 the Highlanders — Montrose's raid through Breadalbane, 
 Glenorchy, Cantyre, and Lorne, the territories of Argyle, in 
 mid-winter, ... ... ... ... ... ... 70 
 
 IV. 
 
 The disastrous defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh, and defeat in 
 Cantyre, and expulsion from Scotland of Sir Alexander 
 McDonnell— His death in 1647, ... ... ...114 
 
viii 
 
 V. 
 
 Continuation of the War in Ulster— Complete suppression of the 
 rebels by the Protestants of the Plantation — Some account 
 of the government established by the Confederate Catholics 
 of Ireland, ... ... ... ... ... ... 126 
 
 VI. 
 
 Events leading to the total ruin of the Irish — Siege of Cloninel 
 
 by Cromwell, ... ... ... ... ... 151 
 
 VII. 
 
 Further proof of extreme exaggeration ir the received histories 
 of the war, ... ... ... ... ... ... 155 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Account of the proceedings of the rebels in the County Cavan 
 during the first seven months of the war, by the Rev. Mr. 
 Clogy, 161 
 
 IX. 
 
 Conclusion — Including some wholesome counsel to both Celt and 
 
 Saxon, ... ... ... ... ... ... 178 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 23, liue 21, for " der" read "under." 
 
 ,, 74, „ 11, for " south-westerly " read " south-easterly." 
 „ 79, ,, 19, for <k national " read " natural." 
 
THE ULSTER CIVIL WAR OP 1641 AND ITS 
 CONSEQUENCES, 
 
 L 
 
 I propose in the following pages to review some of 
 the principal incidents of a period, perhaps the saddest 
 in the sad history of Ireland, including about the last 
 eight years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth — the 
 reigns of James the First of England, and of Charles 
 the First — and five or six years of the reign of the 
 Sword, commonly, but surely facetiously, called the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 The history of Ireland, and of this period especially, 
 has usually been written in the light of the orange or 
 green ray : I am earnestly desirous of writing in the 
 pure white light of truth, which, the scientific reader 
 will recollect, contains both the orange and green, each 
 in its due proportion ; but, writing in this spirit, I am 
 well aware that I shall often deeply offend both the 
 factions who have persistently travestied and deformed 
 the history of Ireland from 1172 to 1878. Both 
 parties must admit my facts. To enable them to 
 make what deductions they can with truth from my 
 inferences from my facts, I will furnish them with a 
 few particulars of my biography. 
 
 l 
 
2 
 
 I have been from my early youth to my eighty-third 
 year, steadfastly " a base, bloody, and brutal Whig," 
 who never failed to promote by his tongue, his pen, and 
 the exercise of his franchise, to the utmost of his little 
 ability, the cause of equal justice to his Koman 
 Catholic fellow-countrymen, from the day (and indeed 
 long before it) on which, according to Lord Claren- 
 don s witty anticipation, as he assumed, the Iron Duke 
 would address the Lords, in his closing speech on 
 Catholic Emancipation, thus : — " My Lords, atten- 
 tion ! right about face — quick march "—to the day 
 when the last remnant of political and religious wrong- 
 was removed by the crowning and great healing Act 
 for the disestablishment and disendowment of the 
 Established Church of Ireland. I doubt whether any 
 Roman Catholic has more sincerely rejoiced over each 
 step towards this consummation than I have. I may 
 add that I am an uncompromising Protestant, and that 
 it is, in my opinion, clearly the true interest of Ireland 
 to form a part of the British Empire, by an equal, firm, 
 and affectionate union with England and Scotland. 
 
 I have entertained the wish for some years past to 
 write an essay on the so-called massacre of 1641 in 
 Ulster, because I thought I had found some overlooked 
 facts relating to it, calculated to throw some of what 
 M. Lanfrey calls "La lumiere vengeresse de Vhis- 
 toire" on the gross and cruel exaggerations of the 
 received accounts of the Ulster insurrection ; but I 
 
3 
 
 should probably not have taken up my pen, at my 
 years, but for the spur applied by Mr. Froude's 
 English in Ireland— a, most mischievous production, 
 which is solely calculated to exasperate the Irish by 
 the calumnious virulence of its anti-Irish spirit, and to 
 persuade Englishmen and Scotchmen that the oppres- 
 sion which the Celtic Irish savages had suffered was 
 only too mild for their deserts. 
 
 I shall have occasion to refer to this work more than 
 once again ; but I wish, in limine, to give my opinion 
 here, that Mr. Froude, in the first section of the pre- 
 liminary chapter of his three volumes, propounds two 
 principles which entirely disentitle him to the office, 
 which I am sure he considers he most worthily fills, of 
 teacher of political morality. He says (vol. L, p. 2) : — 
 
 " In a world in which we are made to depend so largely for 
 our well-being on the conduct of our neighbours, and yet are 
 created infinitely unequal in ability and worthiness of charac- 
 ter, the superior part has a natural right to govern, the 
 inferior part has a natural right to be governed ; and a rude 
 but adequate test of superiority and inferiority is provided in 
 the relative strength of the different orders of human beings." 
 Again : " There neither is nor can be an inherent privilege in 
 any person or set of persons to live unworthily at their own. 
 will, when they can be led or driven into more honourable 
 courses ; the rights of man — if such rights there be — are not 
 to liberty but to wise direction and control." 
 
 A more pernicious doctrine than one of these main- 
 tains, or a baser than the other, I cannot conceive. In 
 accordance with the former, war would be at once 
 
 1* 
 
4 
 
 lighted up from one end of the earth to the other; 
 and the latter would extinguish all patriotic love of 
 country, and all love of liberty. In Europe, it would 
 be the right of Kussia to seize upon Sweden and 
 Norway — of the German Empire, upon Denmark — of 
 France, upon Belgium and the Netherlands — of Spain, 
 upon Portugal — and England must surely exercise the 
 right of taking possession of Crete, Cyprus, and 
 Egypt. Italy, for the present, would have to be 
 satisfied with the little republic of San Marino; and 
 Mr. Froude, I presume, would not grudge to Turkey 
 the re-conquest of Greece. 
 
 The second principle has certainty this recommenda- 
 tion, that the acceptance of it would keep the peace ; 
 but it would be at the sacrifice of some of the noblest 
 virtues that have adorned and immortalized the true 
 heroes of our race. What multitudes of the generous 
 youth of the civilized world have had, and in all 
 future time will have, the flame of love of country 
 and liberty lighted up in their hearts, by the brief and 
 glorious story of Leonidas and his heroic companions. 
 As they read, and their hearts warm as they read, 
 they will assist in imagination at that most touching 
 incident — the celebration by the heroes of their own 
 funeral rites, in the presence of their wives and 
 mothers, on the eve of their departure from Sparta — 
 and will fancy themselves marching with the little 
 phalanx across Peloponessus to Doric strains — 
 
5 
 
 " Such as raised 
 To height of noblest temper heroes old 
 Arming to battle : and, instead of rage, 
 Deliberate valour breath'd, firni and unmov'd 
 With dread of death to flight or foul retreat." 
 
 And now they hear the cheers with which the volun- 
 teers from Plataea, Corinth. Thespise, iEgina, and 
 Athens greet the arrival of the Spartans, and see the 
 united forces occupy the eastern of the two narrow 
 passes that bound the small plain of Thermopylae, into 
 which they permit the entrance of the enemy, and on 
 which they slaughter, day by day, numbers far ex- 
 ceeding their own of the Medes and the Persian 
 immortals. Lastly, shuddering at the sight of the 
 hordes of Asia descending behind the Greeks by the 
 betrayed mountain-pass, and after the dismissal of the 
 allies, they fancy they hear the ringing shout with 
 which the remnant of his men respond to Leonidas's 
 exhortation on the last mornino; of their lives — 
 " Fellow-soldiers, make a hearty meal to nerve your 
 arms for this our last battle to-day. for to-night we 
 sup with Pluto." Finally, before quitting the sacred 
 ground, each, standing by the tumulus that covers their 
 dust, hears himself in imagination addressed by the 
 spirits of the departed heroes in the words of the 
 sublime epitaph of Simonides : — 
 
 "12 ^ecu ayyeiXov AaKehaifioviois otl rySe 
 KeifieOa tols kzlvcov prjfiaaL 7re^o/xe^of." 
 
6 
 
 " Stranger, tell the Lacedemonians 
 That we lie here in obedience to their precepts." 
 
 The incredibly base principle of Froude would have 
 made it the obligation of the Greeks to deliver up 
 Leonidas and Miltiades to the Persians — of the Swiss 
 to surrender Tell to the Austrians — and of the Scots 
 and Americans of the United States to send Wallace, 
 Bruce, and Washington in chains to England, to 
 receive from the halter the reward due to their 
 absurd patriotism and violation of sound principle. 
 
 But we need entertain no apprehension that the phi- 
 losophic nonsense of Mr. Froude, and the wrong-headed 
 Irish faction to which he in truth belongs, will impair 
 the influence which the narratives of this and similar 
 acts of heroic devotion, in past or future time, will 
 ever exercise, to warm the hearts of every generation 
 of the educated youth of the world, and to fill them 
 with patriotic love of country — love of liberty — and 
 detestation of the oppressor. 
 
 The principles I have here denounced often crop up 
 in the course of Mr. Froude s history. They form the 
 foundation on which his three volumes are built, and 
 the foundation is rotten. 
 
 II. 
 
 The task I have imposed upon myself obliges me, 
 in the first place, to enquire into the grounds of the 
 
7 
 
 rebellion of 1641, in Ulster; and to go, for that pur- 
 pose, so far back as the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, 
 3rd Earl of Tyrone, extending over the last eight years 
 of the reign of Elizabeth. This rebellion led indirectly, 
 and an asserted intention to rebel on the part of the 
 same chieftain and O'Donnell of Tyrconnell, in the 
 beginning of the reign of James L, led directly, to the 
 confiscation of six counties in Ulster ; and this confis- 
 cation, which I undertake to prove to have been an 
 act of perfectly unjustifiable spoliation and outrageous 
 wrong, was a principal, if not the principal cause of 
 the rebellion of 1641. 
 
 The suppression of Hugh O'Neill's rebellion was not 
 prosecuted with great vigour for the first five years, 
 although the Queen employed one of her best generals, 
 Sir John Norris, and at one time sent over the unpre- 
 cedented number of 20,000 men for that purpose. 
 
 Norris had attained to great distinction as a soldier 
 in Elizabeth's wars on the Continent, and it is sad to 
 think that any man who achieved good name and 
 fame should have acted the leading part in the follow- 
 ing tragedy. In the early part of Norris's career in 
 Ireland, the Earl of Essex was engaged in carving out 
 for himself, with his sword, an estate in Ulster. He 
 was carrying on a desultory war with Sorley Buy 
 (Light-haired Somerled), the leader of the Antrim 
 McDonnells, and had learned that he had sent the 
 women and children, the sick and aged of his clan, to 
 
8 
 
 the Island of Rathlin, six or seven miles from the 
 Antrim coast, to be out of reach of Essex's sword. 
 Essex thereupon ordered Norris to take two frigates 
 that were lying off Carrickfergus, troops and artillery, 
 to Rathlin. His orders were, to kill all he could find. 
 On landing, he found Bruce's castle garrisoned by a 
 small body of Sorley Buy's Highlanders, with 200 
 women and children under their protection, and 
 quickly knocked the outworks of the castle to pieces. 
 (The castle took its name from the circumstance that 
 Robert Bruce had spent a winter in it, in hiding, when 
 his fortunes were at the lowest ebb. It was here he 
 received the lesson from the persevering spider, which 
 induced him to make his final struggle for the crown 
 of Scotland.) The garrison sent to Norris to propose 
 surrender on condition that they should be permitted 
 to return to the Highlands. Norris replied, they 
 must surrender at discretion ; and, on their doing so, 
 he first cut their throats, and next those of the 200 
 women and children. He then proceeded to ferret out 
 from caves round the island and other hiding-places, 
 400 other victims, whom, to use Mr. Froude's words, 
 " he slaughtered as if theyjiad been seals or otters." 
 Essex sends an account of this terrible tragedy to 
 Elizabeth, whose reply is not the least black incident 
 relating to it. — " I am well pleased with your good 
 service, and will take care to reward John Norris." — 
 That woman's heart must have been made of mill-stone 
 grit. 
 
9 
 
 During the last three years of the war, a frightful 
 change of scene took place under Charles Blount, Lord 
 Mountj oy, Lord Deputy, and afterwards Lord Lieuten- 
 ant of Ireland and Earl of Devonshire. The war was 
 now carried on on the same principle, if not on the 
 model of the late war in Munster for the destruction 
 of the last Earl of Desmond, the head of the senior 
 branch of the Anglo-Irish Geraldines, the result of 
 which is thus described by the poet Spenser, an 
 eye-witness of what he records : — 
 
 " The proof whereof I saw sufficiently exampled in these 
 late wars in Mounster; for notwithstanding that the same was 
 a most rich and plentiful! countrey, full of corne and cattle, 
 that you would have thought they should have been able to 
 stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to 
 such wretchednesse, as that any stony heart would have 
 rued the same. Out of every corner of the woods and 
 glynnes, they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their 
 legges could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of 
 death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves, they 
 did eat the dead carrions — happy where they could find them, 
 yea, and one another some time after, inasmuch as the very 
 carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves ; and 
 if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they 
 flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able to continue 
 long therewithal!; that in short space there were none 
 almost left, and a most populous and plentifull country 
 suddainly left voyde of man and beast ; yet sure in all that 
 wane, there perished not many by the sword, but all by the 
 extremities of famine which they themselves had wrought." 
 
 Sad contrast to the picture painted by the same 
 poet's pencil as he knew it before the savage war, the 
 
10 
 
 responsibility for the consequences of which he so 
 flippantly throws on the victims ! 
 
 "And sure/' says he, "it is a most beautifull and sweet 
 countrey as any is under heaven, being stored throughout 
 with many goodly rivers, replenished with all sorts of fish 
 abundantly, sprinkled with many very sweet islands, and 
 goodley lakes, like little inland seas, that will carry even 
 shippes upon their waters, adorned with goodly woods even fit 
 for building of houses and shippes, so commodiously, as that if 
 some princes in the world had them, they would soone hope to 
 be lords of all the seas, and ere long of all the world : also 
 full of very good ports and havens opening upon England, as 
 inviting us to come to them, to see what excellent commodities 
 the countrey can afford ; besides the soyle itself most fertile, 
 fit to yield all kind of fruit that shall be committed thereunto. 
 And lastly, the heavens most milde and temperate, though 
 somewhat more moist than the parts towards the east." 
 
 Mr. Froude's vivid picture of this war and its con- 
 sequences is not less calculated to make the stony 
 heart rue : — 
 
 " Every living thing was destroyed by which the insurrec- 
 tion could maintain itself. The corn was burned in the 
 field ; the cattle were driven into the camp and slaughtered. 
 The men who could bear arms were out with their chief ; the 
 aged and the sick, the women and the little ones perished all 
 in the flames of their burning houses. The official records of 
 this deadly war return the killed and hanged in tens of 
 thousands, and famine took up the work where neither sword 
 nor rope could reach. Einally, when of the proud clan of the 
 southern Geraldines there was none left but a few scattered 
 and desperate bands, the last weapon was produced which 
 never failed to operate. Pardon and reward were offered to 
 those who would kill their comrades, and the bloody heads of 
 
noted leaders were brought in sacksful to be paid for in land 
 or money * The legate, hunted like a wolf, died wretchedly 
 in a forest shanty [hovel]. Desmond himself, after three 
 years of outlaw life, was betrayed by his own people ; he was 
 stabbed in his bed, and his head was set on a spike on 
 London-bridge ; while so utterly desolate was Munster, that 
 the lowing of a cow, or the sound of a plough-boy's whistle 
 was not to be heard from Valentia to the Eock of Cashel." 
 
 Mountjoy carried on in Ulster the same system of 
 warfare, the sword being relentlessly supplemented by 
 fire and famine through three terrible years — the last 
 of Elizabeth's reign, during which, from end to end of 
 Ulster, were continually to be seen and heard the 
 horrid sights and sounds which Coleridge describes as 
 witnessed in his time by the spirits of fire, famine, and 
 slaughter : 
 
 "FAMINE ADDRESSING SLAUGHTER. 
 
 " Thanks, sister, thanks ! the men have bled, 
 Their wives and their children faint for bread. 
 I stood in a swampy field of battle, 
 With bones and skulls I made a rattle, 
 To frighten the wolf, and carrion crow, 
 And the homeless dog — but they would not go. 
 So off I flew : for how could I bear 
 To see them gorge their dainty fare ? 
 I heard a groan and a peevish squall, 
 And through the chink of a cottage wall — 
 Can you guess what I saw there ? 
 
 * I take leave to suggest to Mr. Froude the insertion here, in his next 
 edition, of some little reprobation of this mode of concluding war by 
 subornation of assassination, and the reward of the assassin by pardon 
 and land or money. 
 
12 
 
 "•FIRE AND SLAUGHTER. 
 
 Whisper it, sister ! in our ear. 
 
 " FAMINE. 
 
 A baby beat its dying mother, 
 
 I had starved the one and was starving the other. 
 
 " FIRE. 
 
 Sisters, I from Ireland came ! 
 Hedge and corn-fields all on flame, 
 I triumphed o'er the setting sun ! 
 And all the time the work was done, 
 On as I strode with my huge strides, 
 I flung back my head and held my sides. 
 
 By the light of his own blazing cot 
 Was many a naked rebel shot : 
 The house-stream met the flame and hissed, 
 While, crash ! fell in the roof I wist — 
 On some of those old bed-rid nurses 
 That deal in discontent and curses." 
 
 " With these chiefs " [Desmond and Tyrone, in the reign 
 of Elizabeth], says Goldwin Smith,* " a long, desperate, and 
 wavering struggle of policy and arms accordingly commenced. 
 It ended in the total overthrow of the chiefs, whose power 
 finally sunk in the fall of Tyrone, but it left Ireland a waste 
 of blood and ashes." 
 
 Let us hear the testimony of the chief actor in the 
 tragedy of the Ulster war, and of his private secretary, 
 Fynes Moryson, eye-witnesses of what they describe. 
 
 Towards the end of 1602 Tyrone's country had 
 
 * Irish History and Irish Character, p. 72. 
 
13 
 
 been penetrated by Sir Henry Dowcra, a brave and 
 skilful soldier, from Derry in the north ; by Sir 
 Arthur Chichester, from Carrickfergus in the east; 
 and by Mountjoy, from the south — till they met in the 
 middle of Tyrone. 
 
 " Tyrone h [the Earl], says Mountjoy in a letter to the 
 Council in England, " is already beaten out of his country, 
 and lives in a part of O'Kane's, a place of incredible fastness, 
 where, though it be impossible to do him any great hurt so 
 long as he shall be able to keep any force about him — the 
 ways to him being inaccessible with an army — yet, by lying 
 about him, as we mean to do, we shall in short time put him 
 to his uttermost extremity, and if not light upon his person 
 yet force him to fly the kingdom. In the mean time we can 
 assure your lordships thus much — that from O'Kane's country, 
 where now he liveth, which is to the northward of his own 
 country of Tyrone, we have left none to give us opposition, 
 nor of late have seen any but dead carcasses, merely starved 
 for want of meat, of which kind we found many in divers 
 places as we passed." 
 
 On returning to Dublin he directed Dowcra to 
 station himself at Omagh, and Chichester to garrison 
 the fort of Mountjoy, on Lough Neagh, near Dun- 
 gannon, with orders to drive the inhabitants from 
 Tyrone, to spoil all the corn he could not preserve for 
 the garrison, and to deface all the islands taken. 
 
 He writes from Newry, on his way to Dublin, on 
 the 12th of September, that 
 
 " In Tyrone, which had been reduced to a desert, and in 
 the neighbouring counties also, he had found everywhere 
 men dead of famine, insomuch that O'Hagan [a chieftain of 
 
14 
 
 Tyrone] protested unto us, that between Tullahogue and 
 Toome [a distance of about twenty miles] there lay a thousand 
 dead, and that since our first drawing this year to Blackwater 
 there were above three thousand starved in Tyrone." 
 
 Moryson's testimony is to the same effect : — 
 
 " Now because I have often made mention formerly of our 
 destroying the rebels' corn, and using all means to famish 
 them, let me by two or three examples shew the miserable 
 estate to which the rebels were thereby brought. Sir Arthur 
 Chichester, Sir Eichard Moryson, and the other commanders 
 of the forces sent against Brian MacArt [O'Neill] aforesaid, in 
 their return homewards saw a most horrid spectacle of three 
 children (whereof the eldest was not above ten years old) all 
 eating their dead mother, upon whose flesh they had fed 
 twenty days past. [I omit here some most revolting particu- 
 lars.] Former mention hath been made in the Lord Deputy's 
 letters, of carcases scattered in many places — all dead of 
 famine. And no doubt the famine was so great, as the rebel 
 soldiers taking all the common people had to feed upon, and 
 hardly living thereupon (so as they besides fed not only on 
 hawkes, kites, and unsavory birds of prey, but on horse-flesh 
 and other things unfit for man's feeding), as that the common 
 sort were brought to unspeakable extremities (beyond the 
 record of most histories that ever I did read in that kind), the 
 ample relating whereof were an infinite task, yet will I not 
 pass it over without adding some few instances. Captain 
 Trevor and many honest gentlemen lying in the Newry can 
 witness that some old women in those parts were used to 
 make a fire in the fields, and divers little children driving out 
 the cattle in the cold mornings, and coming thither to warm 
 them, were by them surprised, killed, and eaten, which at 
 last was discovered by a great girl breaking from them by the 
 strength of her body; and Captain Trevor sending out soldiers 
 to know the truth, they found the childrens' skulls and bones, 
 and apprehended the old women, who were executed for the 
 
15 
 
 fact. The captains of Carrickfergus and the adjacent garri- 
 sons of the northern parts can witness that upon the making 
 of peace and receiving the rebels to mercy, it was a common 
 practice among the common sort of them (I mean such as 
 were not sword-men) to thrust long needles into the horses of 
 our English troops, and they dying thereupon, to be ready to 
 tear out one another's throat, for a share of them. And no 
 spectacle was more common in the ditches of towns, and 
 especially in the wasted countries, than to see multitudes of 
 these poor people dead, with their mouths all coloured green by 
 eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up 
 above ground. These and very many like lamentable effects 
 followed their rebellion, and no doubt the rebels had been 
 utterly destroyed by famine had not a general peace shortly 
 followed Tyrone's submission." 
 
 Soon after Mountjoy's departure to Dublin, Tyrone 
 fled to the mountain fastnesses south-west of Lough 
 Erne in Fermanagh. The utmost force he could now 
 raise was 600 gallowglasses (heavy armed foot) and 
 kerne (light armed foot), and fifty horse. Nearly all 
 his vassals and allies, O'Donnell and O'Kane amongst 
 them, had made their peace, and he himself, reduced 
 to despair, repeatedly made the most urgent appeals to 
 Mountj oy for mercy and solemn promises of the most 
 submissive loyalty to Elizabeth for the rest of his life. 
 He wrote upon 12th November, 1602 : — 
 
 " I will, from henceforth," says he, " both renounce all other 
 princes but her, and serve her highness the residue of my life, 
 humbly requesting of your honor, now that you have brought 
 me so low, to remember I am a nobleman, and to take com- 
 passion on me, that the overthrow of my house and posterity 
 may be prevented by your good means and honorable care 
 
16 
 
 towards her Majesty for me, which with all humility I desire 
 and will accept." 
 
 Early in 1603, when Elizabeth was on her death- 
 bed, Mountj oy permitted O'Neill to appear before him 
 at Mellifont, near Drogheda, and there the proud but 
 humiliated chieftain, on his knees before the Lord 
 Deputy for an hour, made ample confession of the 
 wickedness of his rebellion, and renewed protestations 
 of future loyalty, and received pardon. 
 
 I have entered thus particularly into the history of 
 this rebellion, because it affords a demonstration that 
 O'Neill and O'Donnell could not have entertained the 
 thought of a new rebellion within four years of 
 O'Neill's submission, or before the half-starved Ulster 
 youth of 1603 had ripened into fighting men. Under 
 the circumstances, no man, not a cross between a 
 lunatic and an idiot, could have entertained the 
 thought for a moment. 
 
 One of the worst evils that afflicted Ireland for 
 centuries arose from a succession of penniless adven- 
 turers who nocked to Dublin Castle, and by virtue of 
 a manufacture, at this time brought to great perfec- 
 tion, became, in short space, lords of broad and fertile 
 lands. It may with perfect confidence be asserted, 
 that if the manufactures of iron, flax, silk, wool, and 
 cotton-wool had been brought here to the same con- 
 dition of perfection, Ireland would long have been, 
 instead of the poorest and most manufactureless 
 
17 
 
 country in Europe, the most rife of manufacture and 
 the richest of all countries. I allude to the manufac- 
 ture in Dublin Castle of Irish traitors and rebels, 
 whose confiscated lands the adventurers were resolved 
 to be possessed of. Goldwin Smith, speaking of the 
 spirit of adventure so prevalent in the time of Eliza- 
 beth, says : — 
 
 " The eagles took wing for the Spanish main ; the vultures 
 descended upon Ireland. A daring use of his sword procured 
 for the adventurer in the Spanish colonies romantic wealth 
 in the shape of ingots and rich bales; a dexterous use of 
 intrigue, chicanery, and the art of inciting to rebellion, procured 
 for the sharper in Ireland wealth less romantic, but more 
 solid and lasting, in the shape of confiscated lands. The 
 appearance of these adventurers, and the commencement of 
 their hateful trade, made war internecine. Submission may 
 avail with the tyrant, but never with the confiscator." 
 
 The raw material, in the present instance, was most 
 unpromising, but the operatives were not discouraged, 
 and their audacity was approved by perfect success. 
 The process of manufacture was very simple. An 
 anonymous letter, addressed to Sir William Usher, 
 Clerk of the Privy Council, was dropt in the Council 
 chamber, stating that O'Neill, O'Donnell, and Richard 
 Nugent, a young man, Baron of Delvin, had entered 
 into a conspiracy to seize the Castle of Dublin, put the 
 Lord-Deputy to death, and raise a general rebellion 
 with the aid of a Spanish army. " Experience," says 
 the proverb, " keeps a dear school, but fools will learn 
 at no other." The chieftains had a terrible lesson 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 from that teacher four years before. They knew that 
 Elizabeth had sent 20,000 men to subdue them, and 
 that she had utterly crushed them with half that 
 number — that the resources of James were the same 
 with the addition of those of Scotland ; and that at 
 this time by no possibility could they bring 2,000 
 men into the field. They knew, too, that their lives 
 would assuredly be forfeited if they submitted them- 
 selves to the government for trial. 
 
 Delvin was taken into custody, tried, and con- 
 demned, but effected his escape. 
 
 O'Neill and O'Donnell, with their families, im- 
 mediately fled from Ireland, and ended their days 
 in Eome. Two, and two only, plausible facts have 
 ever been urged against them in proof of their guilt, 
 viz. : (1) their flight, and (2) that they never pub- 
 lished any vindication of themselves at Eome. 
 
 The answer to the former charge is very simple. If 
 either of them had been asked why he did not stand 
 his trial, " he might have answered as another 
 unfortunate Irish exile did in a similar case : — ' What 
 chance would a fat goose have before a jury of 
 foxes?' "* 
 
 No satisfactory answer has been given, so far as I 
 know, to the argument that they never published any 
 vindication of themselves ; yet I think this fact admits 
 of an explanation both satisfactory and obvious. They 
 
 * Cooke Taylor's Civil Wars of Ireland. 
 
19 
 
 depended in Rome for the support of themselves and 
 their families altogether upon the pensions liberally 
 bestowed upon them by Philip of Spain and the Pope, 
 for the very reason that they were believed to have 
 been ever irreconcilable enemies of England ; and 
 nothing can be more certain than that the publica- 
 tion by them of a statement clearly proving that, at 
 the time of their flight, they were devotedly loyal to 
 James, and neither did nor could have contemplated 
 the raising an Irish rebellion against him, would at 
 once have deprived them of their sole means of 
 subsistence. 
 
 James soon published a manifesto from his own 
 pen to justify before the world the attainder about 
 to be passed against the fugitives, and to make 
 their guilt manifest. This document contains much 
 extremely undignified vituperation of them, but not 
 a shadow of proof of their guilt. It may fairly be 
 supposed to contain all the evidence he was able to 
 produce. I give the manifesto in extenso that the 
 reader may judge of it for himself. 
 
 "BY THE KING : A PROCLAMATION TOUCHING THE EARLS OF 
 TIRONE AND TIRCONNEL. 
 
 " Seeing it is common and natural in all persons of what 
 condition soever, to speak and judge variably of all new and 
 sudden accidents, and that the flight of the Earles of Tirone 
 and Tirconnel, with some others of their followers out of the 
 north parts of our realm of Ireland, may haply prove a subject 
 of like discourse : We have thought it not amiss to deliver 
 
 2* 
 
20 
 
 some such matter in publique, as may better cleare men's 
 judgements concerning the same; not in respect of any worth 
 or value in these men's persons, being base and rude in their 
 originall, but to take away all such inconveniences as may 
 blemish the reputation of that friendship, which ought to 
 be mutually observed between us and other princes. For 
 although it is not unlikely that the report of their titles and 
 dignities may draw from princes and states some such cour- 
 tesies at their first coming abroad, as are incident to men of 
 extraordinary rank and qualitie, yet, when wee have taken 
 the best means wee can to lay them open in every condition, 
 wee shall then expect from our friends and neighbours all 
 such just and noble proceedings as stand with the rules of 
 honour and friendship, and from our subjects, at home and 
 abroad, that duety and obedience (in their carriage towards 
 them) which they owe to us by inseparable bonds and obliga- 
 tions of nature and loyaltie, whereof wee intend to take 
 streight accompt. For which purpose wee do hereby first 
 declare, that these persons above-mentioned had not their 
 creations or possessions in regard of any lineall or lawfull 
 descent from ancestors of blood or vertue; but were 
 onely preferred by the late Queene our sister, of famous 
 memorie, and by ourselves, for some reasons of state, before 
 others who for their qualitie and birth (in those provinces 
 where they dwell) might better have challenged those honours 
 which were conferred upon them. Secondly, wee doe pro- 
 fess that it is knowen to our counsell here, and to our 
 deputie and state there, and so shall it appeare to the world 
 (as cleare as the sunne) by evident proofes, the onely ground 
 and motive of this high contempt in these men's departure, 
 hath been the private knowledge and inward terror of their 
 owne guiltinesse : whereof, because wee heare that they doe 
 seeke to take away the blot and infamie, by divulging that 
 they have withdrawn themselves for matters of religion (a 
 cloake that serves too much in these days to cover many evil 
 intentions) adding also thereunto some other vaine pretexts 
 
21 
 
 of receiving injustice, when their rights and claims have come 
 in question between them and us, or any of our subjects and 
 them, wee think not impertinent to say somewhat thereof. 
 
 " And therefore, although wee judge it needlesse to seeke 
 for many arguments to confirme whatsoever shall be said of 
 these men's corruption and falshood (whose heinous offences 
 remaine so fresh in memorie, since they declared themselves 
 so very monsters in nature, as they did not onely withdraw 
 from their personal obedience to their soverigne, but were 
 content to sell over their native countrey to those that stood 
 at that time in the highest terms of hostilitie with the two 
 crowns of England and Ireland) yet, to make the absurditie 
 and ingratitude of the allegations abovementioned, so much 
 the more cleare to all men of equall judgement, wee doe 
 hereby professe on the word of a kinge that there never was 
 as much as any shadowe of molestation, nor purpose of pro- 
 ceeding in any degree against them for matter concerning 
 religion. Such being their condition and profession, to think 
 murder no fault, marriage of no use, nor any man worthy to 
 be esteemed valiant that did not glorie in rapine and opres- 
 sion ; as wee should have thought an unreasonable thing to 
 trouble them for any different point in religion, before any 
 man could perceive by their conversation that they made 
 truely conscience of any religion. So doe wee also for the 
 second part of their excuse affirm, that (notwithstanding all 
 that they can claime must be acknowledged to proceed from 
 mere grace upon their submission, after their great and un- 
 naturale treasons) there hath never come any question con- 
 cerning their rights or possessions wherein wee have not bene 
 inclinable to showe them favour than to any of their compe- 
 titours, except in those cases wherein wee have plainly dis- 
 cerned that their onely end was to have made themselves more 
 able than now they are to resist all lawfull authoritie (when 
 they should returne to their vomit again) by usurping a power 
 over other good subjects of ours that dwell among them, 
 better borne than they, and utterly disclaiming from any 
 dependancie upon them. 
 
22 
 
 " Having now delivered this much, concerning these men's 
 estates and their proceedings, wee will onely end with this 
 conclusion, that they shall not be able to denie, whensoever 
 they should dare to present themselves before the seate of 
 justice, that they have (before the running out of our king- 
 dom) not onely entered into combination for stirring sedition 
 and intestine rebellion, but have directed divers instruments, 
 as well priestes as others, to make offers to foreign states and 
 princes (if they had bene as ready to receive them) of their 
 readinesse and resolution to adhere to them whensoever they 
 should seeke to invade that kingdom. Wherein, amongst 
 other things, this is not to be forgotten, that under condition 
 of being made free from English government, they resolved 
 also to comprehend the utter extirpation of all those subjects 
 that are now remayning alive within that kingdom, formerly 
 descended from the English race. In which practices and 
 propositions, followed and fomented by priestes and jesuites 
 (of whose function in these times the practice and persuasion 
 of subjects to rebel against their soveraignes is one special 
 and essential part and portion) as they have found no such 
 encouragement as they expected and have boasted of, so wee 
 doe assure ourselves, that when this declaration shall bee 
 seene and duely weighed with all due circumstances, it will 
 bee of force sufficient to disperse and to discredit all such un- 
 trueths, as these contemptible creatures, so full of infidelity 
 and ingratitude, shall disgorge against us and our just and 
 moderate proceeding, and shall procure unto them no better 
 usage than they would wish should bee afforded to any such 
 packe of rebels, borne their subjects, and bound unto them in 
 so many and so great obligations. 
 
 " Given at our palace of Westminster, the fifteenth day 
 of November, in the fifth yeere of our reigne of Great 
 Britain, France, and Ireland. God Save the King." 
 
 The world was favoured in this proclamation with 
 much vulgar and false abuse of the Earls, and mere 
 
23 
 
 assertion, without proof of any kind of their guilt. 
 But though James fails conspicuously in this respect, 
 he furnished shortly after a singular piece of evidence 
 in favour of their innocence. Baron Delvin, one of 
 the alleged conspirators already mentioned, surrendered 
 himself to James, was soon after in high favour with 
 him, and was created by him Earl of Westmeath. 
 The evidence against O'Neill and O'Donnell, however 
 flimsy, was abundantly sufficient to procure their at- 
 tainder and the confiscation of their vast estates by 
 Act of Parliament in 1613, to be at the disposal of 
 the King. By a crowning act of incredible injustice, 
 all who held lands under the chiefs, however innocent 
 of complicity, forfeited them. An insane rebellion of 
 Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, soon after, added Innishowen to 
 the other immense forfeitures, and James was enabled 
 to undertake the grateful task of executing the Planta- 
 tion of Ulster, and the introduction of civility, by such 
 means, into the North of Ireland. 
 
 Thus, by an act of atrocious and lawless cruelty, 
 der the mask of law, were six counties of Ulster 
 forfeited to the Crown. The passive submission of the 
 despoiled natives affords strong corroboration of what 
 I have stated as to the nearly complete destruction of 
 the fighting men of the population. 
 
 " By this last treason," says Mr. Froude, " of the two Earls 
 and their confederates, six counties were escheated to the 
 Crown — Donegall, Deny, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, and 
 
24 
 
 Armagh. Antrim and Down were already partially occupied 
 by Scots — western Highlanders, who for three centuries had 
 been forming settlements in Ireland. They had been scarcely 
 distinguishable hitherto from the native race, but they were 
 capable of being reclaimed. Their chief, Sir Eandal MacDon- 
 nell, or MacConnell, was created Earl of Antrim. The six 
 escheated counties contained in all two million acres. Oi" 
 these, a million and a-half bog, forest, and mountain were 
 restored to the Irish. The half-million were settled with 
 families of Scotch and English Protestants." 
 
 This passage affords a specimen of Mr. Froude's 
 historical research and accuracy. About 250 years 
 before the Plantation of Ulster, Ian Vohr McDonnell, 
 of Isla and Cantyre, second son of the Lord of 
 the Isles, married Margery Byssett, heiress of a 
 Norman Baron, lord of the district of the Glens in 
 the County of Antrim. At the time of the confisca- 
 tion, Ian Vohr's descendants possessed the county 
 from Larne to Dunluce. In Antrim, south of Larne, 
 and in Down, there were no western Highlanders, who, 
 though " capable of being reclaimed/' were not " alien" 
 to the Irish either " in blood, language, or religion," 
 except the Campbells, who were aliens in religion. 
 The Western Highlanders were more purely Celtic than 
 the Irish themselves. The Celtic blood of Ireland had 
 received a considerable infusion of Norman and Saxon 
 blood between 1172 and 1600. Up to this time, and 
 indeed till the Highland chiefs discovered that their 
 importance had come to depend more on the number of 
 their sheep than of their clansmen, the Western High- 
 
25 
 
 landers had repelled the Sassenach. The O'Neills 
 still held large estates in the south of Antrim, and in 
 the County Down ; and Lord Montgomery of Ards, 
 and Lord Clandeboy (Hamilton), both from Ayrshire, 
 had lately acquired, by less questionable means than 
 usual, extensive properties in Down. The Savages 
 who had accompanied DeCourcy in his raid at the time 
 of the English invasion, still possessed the Ards of 
 Down ; and, in the south of the county, the Magen- 
 nisses and FitzGeralds were considerable landed pro- 
 prietors. 
 
 " Two million acres," says Mr. Froude, " were con- 
 fiscated." Donegal and Tyrone alone contain 1,999,736 
 acres. We must surely admire the singular generosity with 
 which three-fourths of the forfeited lands were assigned 
 to the natives. It was, however, a drawback that they 
 were "bog, forest, and mountain." The king-craft by 
 which this cruel spoliation was perpetrated had not 
 attained its present perfection, through the skill of an 
 inexperienced craftsman. James had, shortly before, 
 " tried his prentice hand" in spoliation and worse, in 
 the Highlands of Scotland. Sir James McDonnell 
 (chief of the Eandal McDonnell just mentioned), 
 whose Highland designation was McDonnell of Isla, 
 Cantyre, and the Glens, and whose family, though not 
 the main branch of the clan MacDonald, had been 
 for more than a century past the most powerful 
 one of that clan, had been engaged for some years 
 
26 
 
 in rebellious war with James, zealously assisted 
 by the Argyle Campbells. Desirous of strength- 
 ening himself against the rebel, he entered into 
 a negotiation with the Marquis of Huntly, chief 
 of the powerful clan Gordon, to aid in the destruction 
 of McDonnell. 
 
 " In a short time," says Gregory in his History of the 
 Western Highlands and Isles of Scotland (p. 313, et sea.), 
 " the King's pleasure was signified to the Council that certain 
 conditions, sent direct from the Court, should be proposed for 
 the Marquis's [Huntly's] acceptance. It is scarcely credible 
 that such conditions should have emanated from a Kin:? of 
 Great Britain in the 17th century; yet there seems no reason 
 to doubt that, if not originally suggested by James himself, 
 they certainly received his approval." 
 
 They were as follows : — 
 
 " That the Marquis should undertake the service upon his 
 own private means alone ; that he should conclude it within a 
 year ; that he should end the service, not by agreement with 
 the country people, but by exterminating them." 
 
 By a mere accident the undertaking of the massacre 
 
 was prevented. Gregory adds : — 
 
 "This accident, for it does not bear the appearance of 
 a scheme concerted to save the Islanders, seems alone to have 
 prevented the reign of James VI. from being stained by a 
 massacre which, for atrocity and the deliberation with which 
 it was planned, would have left that of Glenco far in the 
 shade. But whether the interference of the Presbyterians was 
 accidental or intentional, the islanders of that day owed 
 nothing to their prince, whose character must ever bear the 
 stain of having, for the most sordid motives, consigned to 
 destruction thousands of his subjects." 
 
BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS, 
 
 27 
 
 The second great cause of the insurrection of 1641 
 was the religious persecution of the Irish Roman 
 Catholics during the whole of our period, and the 
 political tyranny they suffered under during the reigns 
 of James, Charles, and the Sword. Early in the 
 reioTL of Elizabeth, she resolved to establish the 
 Eeformation in Ireland, and, with that view, a fine of 
 twelve pence each Sunday was to be imposed upon all 
 who refused to attend divine worship in the Protestant 
 churches ; and, so far as the power of her bayonets 
 reached, the property of the Eomish Church was 
 bestowed upon that of the Eeformation, and the Irish 
 bishops and inferior clergy were displaced by imported 
 Englishmen. At this time probably not one person in 
 fifty, beyond the walls of Dublin, could speak English, 
 and of course the imported clergy could not speak 
 Irish. I fancy there are few Protestants at the present 
 time who would dispute my opinion, that if Satan 
 himself had presided at the council where the adoption 
 of these measures was resolved upon, they were 
 precisely those he would have suggested and advocated 
 with the certainty of rendering Protestants hateful in 
 the eyes of the Irish and the Eeformation among them 
 impossible. 
 
 I beg leave to put the following case and question 
 before any English or Scotch Protestant. If, in the 
 reigns of Elizabeth and James VI., a malignant fate 
 had put it in the power of the Eoman Catholic mino- 
 
28 
 
 rity in England and Scotland, with the aid of French 
 and Spanish bayonets, to have established in them the 
 Koman Catholic religion, to have bestowed the property 
 of the established churches upon Koman Catholic 
 bishops and priests, speaking Irish or Italian, what 
 would have been the speedy consequence 1 Assuredly 
 there would have been formed an immediate " solemn 
 league and covenant," from John O'Groat's to St. 
 Michaels Mount, and an insurrection, which for a few 
 months would have been called a rebellion, but soon, 
 on its certain success, a civil war for the redress of in- 
 tolerable tyranny and wrong. Let the person to whom 
 I have put the above query recollect that a precisely 
 similar wrong was only one of several that provoked 
 the rebellion of 1641 in Ulster. 
 
 For some time before his death, James was zealously 
 engaged in a project to repeat in Con naught the public 
 robbery he had so successfully perpetrated in Ulster. 
 He proposed to establish an inquisition into the legality 
 of the titles of the landed gentry of Connaught to 
 property possessed by them for centuries. In the event 
 of any flaw in the title being discovered by a keen 
 lawyer's eye, the land was to be forfeited to the Crown. 
 The iniquity of this project was aggravated by what had 
 already occurred respecting these lands. In the reign 
 of Elizabeth, the lords and gentry of Connaught had 
 surrendered their estates to the Lord Deputy, Sir J ohn 
 Perrot, receiving them back as grants from the Queen. 
 
29 
 
 They neglected to enrol their patents, and surrendered 
 them to James, paying £3,000 to have them enrolled. 
 The officers of the Court of Chancery negligently, if 
 not fraudulently, omitted this form, and James, at the 
 time of his death, was preparing to avail himself of 
 this clerical omission, and debating with himself 
 whether he would carry out the confiscation, or accept 
 a bribe of £10,000 offered him by the gentry to secure 
 themselves against his rapacity. Thus ended, so far as 
 Ireland was concerned, the disgraceful reign of the first 
 of five sovereigns of his race, every one of whom op- 
 pressed and inflicted cruel and insufferable wrongs upon 
 the unfortunate country cursed with their misrule. 
 
 The scheme of confiscation thus came to Charles as 
 an inheritance from his father. The lords and gentry 
 of Connaught now submitted to Charles a series of pro- 
 positions, a sort of "Bill of Eights," for the pacification 
 of the country, and the securing of their properties. 
 These propositions were called the graces. They were 
 founded both in equity and sound policy. There was 
 not one of them which a wise and good king would not 
 have granted willingly, without hesitation, and without 
 bribe. The most important articles of them were : — 
 
 " That whereby the subjects were secured in the quiet en- 
 joyment of their lands, by limiting the King's title to sixty 
 years (and renouncing all claims of any earlier period) ; that 
 which admitted the recusants to sue their liveries, ouster-le- 
 mains, and other grants, depending in the court of wards, and 
 to practise in the law courts, on taking an oath substituted in 
 
30 
 
 the place of the oath of supremacy, by which they professed 
 to acknowledge and promised to defend Charles as the right- 
 ful and lawful King of the realm ; and that which admitted 
 the inhabitants of Connaught to make a new enrolment of 
 their patents, and thus to secure their titles from future litiga- 
 tion." (Leland, vol. ii, p. 498, Cork, 1775.) 
 
 The oppressions of the soldiery were to be restrained, 
 martial law was to be confined to times of war and re- 
 bellion, persons notoriously infamous or capitally con- 
 victed were not to be permitted to be witnesses, and 
 the clergy were not to keep private prisons for persons 
 accused of ecclesiastical offences. 
 
 Charles was, however, offered the bribe of £120,000, 
 and was guilty, after accepting the bribe, of the scarcely 
 credible baseness and breach of faith, of first evading, 
 and finally permitting and encouraging the Lord De- 
 puty Wentworth to refuse the graces. The tyranny- 
 exercised in his government of Ireland, by " that great 
 bad man/'* was a most powerful immediate cause ot 
 the outbreak of 1641. Whoever, with a little skill in 
 physiognomy, has looked upon him as presented to us 
 in Van Dyke's living portrait, and has marked the 
 stern countenance, falcon eye, gauntleted and trunch- 
 eoned hand and arm standing out of the canvas, wall 
 feel that he must have been by nature a tyrant. 
 Nothing could exceed the insolence and contempt of 
 justice with which, by a mixture of legal chicane, 
 bribery of the judges, and intimidation of the juries, 
 
 * Epithets bestowed by Burke upon another tyrant, Cromwell. 
 
31 
 
 he proceeded to effect his iniquitous project. In at- 
 tending the legal process in each county, he took with 
 him " 500 horse, as good lookers-on." He gave the 
 judges a share (4s. in the pound out of the first year's 
 rent to the Chief Justice and Chief Baron) of the 
 plunder in each case decided in favour of the Crown ; 
 and in the first case in which a jury in the County 
 of Galway (in which county only he met with 
 opposition) found for the proprietors, he fined the 
 sheriff £1,000 for returning an improper jury, 
 and summoned the jury to appear before the Castle 
 Chamber (the Irish Star Chamber), by which they 
 were fined £4,000 each, and to be imprisoned till the 
 fines were paid, and till they had confessed their offence 
 before the court on their knees. He enforced, indivi- 
 dually, against the Eoman Catholic lawyers, who had 
 pleaded against the title of the Crown in the Galway 
 trials, the law which required their taking the oath of 
 supremacy ; their refusing to take which disqualified 
 them for the exercise of their profession, and their 
 taking of which amounted to the renouncing of their 
 religion.* By an extortion, which he had afterwards 
 good reason to rue, he obliged the London companies 
 to pay £70,000 for neglect of certain of the conditions 
 of the grant by James of their estates in the County 
 of Londonderry. He considered Ireland as a con- 
 
 * Cooke Taylor, vol. i., p. 254; and Wright's History of Ireland, 
 vol. i., p. 641. 
 
32 
 
 quered country, which, consequently, in his opinion, 
 possessed no civil rights, except such as it should 
 please Charles to grant. These sentiments he avowed 
 and defended at the trial where he was condemned to 
 death. The whole of his government, during the 
 years of his rule as Lord Deputy or Lord Lieutenant, 
 was in harmony with them ; and in the end he was 
 able proudly to boast, in a letter to Laud — 
 
 " Now I can say the King is as absolute here as any prince 
 in the whole world can be, and may be still, if it be not 
 spoiled on that side" [viz., in England]. Wright, ubi supra, 
 vol. i., p. 639. 
 
 The tyranny exercised by Strafford powerfully con- 
 tributed to excite the impending Ulster outbreak of 
 1641. The proposed confiscation in Connaught did not 
 indeed directly affect the Koman Catholics of Ulster ; 
 but they had suffered and were suffering under a 
 similar outrage, and therefore the more warmly and 
 deeply sympathised with their brethren in Connaught, 
 and resented the threatened wrong. The penal laws 
 against Eoman Catholics, then in existence, though 
 mild indeed in comparison with what that disgraceful 
 and demoralising code became in the reign of Queen 
 Anne, and though both James and Charles were usually 
 desirous of letting them slumber, could be put in force 
 at any time by the Government, as we have just seen 
 in the case of the Eoman Catholic lawyers who had 
 pleaded against James's title in the Galway confisca- 
 
33 
 
 tion case, or by any spiteful enemy, in the case of an 
 individual Roman Catholic. Strafford, shortly before 
 this time, coerced the Roman Catholics to submit to a 
 tax he proposed to establish, by the threat that, in the 
 event of their refusal, he would strictly enforce the 
 law which imposed the weekly fine of one shilling 
 upon all who did not attend Divine service in 
 the churches of the Establishment. The public 
 performance of Divine service by the Roman Catholic 
 clergy was usually winked at ; but the following oc- 
 currence, shortly before Strafford's Lord Deputyship, 
 shows the sort of security afforded by the sufferance in 
 question : — 
 
 " The Lords Justices were attending Divine service at 
 Christ Church [a Protestant Cathedral in Dublin], when 
 intelligence reached them that a fraternity of Carmelites were 
 celebrating their religious rites, in the habits of their order, in 
 a part of Dublin called Cook-street. Nothing had given 
 greater offence to the English Protestants than the appearance 
 of the monastic orders, and the behaviour of these friars was 
 looked upon as an act of presumptuous contumacy. The 
 Archbishop of Dublin, with the chief magistrate of the city, 
 proceeded to Cook-street, at the head of a file of musketeers, 
 entered the chapel, seized the priest in his vestments, and car- 
 ried away all the sacred utensils and ornaments. In the first 
 moments of alarm the congregation sought their safety in 
 flight, but some of them returned, and, pursuing the assailants, 
 they succeeded in rescuing their priest. A strong representa- 
 tion of the conduct of the Catholics on this occasion was sent 
 over to the Privy Council in London, and the more zealous 
 Protestants seized the occasion to protest against what they 
 conceived to be the mistaken lenity which had encouraged 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 such bold displays. It was therefore resolved to punish the 
 religious orders in general; and by the Council's order six- 
 teen monastic houses were seized to the King's use, and the 
 Popish College in Dublin, which from its first establishment 
 had been looked upon with a jealous eye, was granted to the 
 University of Dublin, and converted into a Protestant semi- 
 nary." * 
 
 These exasperating and oppressive laws had their 
 share in exciting to insurrection. If enforced, no 
 Eoman Catholic could plead as counsel in a court of 
 justice, be a magistrate, or hold any office, civil or mili- 
 tary, under the Crown, and wards in Chancery, sons of 
 Eoman Catholics, were to be brought up Protestants. 
 
 The last motive to the insurrection in 1641 was the 
 desire to support Charles against the Puritan Parlia- 
 mentarians. The Eoman Catholic gentry of Ireland 
 were to a man Cavaliers. They were Eoyalists by their 
 religion, and knew that Charles was not disposed to 
 oppress them on account of their religion. They knew T 
 that the Long Parliament had proclaimed their deter- 
 mination to extirpate that religion in Ireland, which, to 
 people attached devotedly to it as the Irish were, was 
 tantamount to a declaration of a determination to 
 extirpate themselves ; and they had good reason to 
 suspect that the intention to perpetrate this atrocious 
 wickedness was really entertained by the stern leaders 
 of the Puritan party in England and Scotland. 
 
 At this point of time, when the Irish Eoman Catholics 
 
 * Wright's History of Ireland, vol. i., p. 264. 
 
35 
 
 resolved to draw the sword in defence of the Koyal pre- 
 rogative, among other motives, it is right to advert 
 to the exact condition at which the quarrel between 
 Charles and his parliament had arrived. 
 
 " Neither party," says Macaulay ( History of England, 
 vol. i., p. 103, et seq.), "wanted strong arguments for the 
 measures which it was disposed to adopt. The reasoning of 
 the most enlightened Koyalists may be summed up thus : ' It 
 is true that great abuses have existed ; but they have been 
 redressed. It is true that precious rights have been invaded ; 
 but they have been vindicated and surrounded with new secu- 
 rities. The sittings of the estates of the realm have been, in 
 defiance of all precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, 
 intermitted during eleven years; but it has been provided 
 that henceforth three years shall never elapse without a 
 parliament. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the 
 Council of York, oppressed and plundered us ; but these 
 hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant 
 [Strafford] aimed at establishing military despotism ; but he 
 has answered for his treason with his head. The Primate 
 [Archbishop Laud] tainted our worship with Popish rites, and 
 punished our scruples with Popish cruelty ; but he is awaiting 
 in the Tower the judgment of his peers. The Lord Keeper 
 sanctioned a plan by which the property of every man in 
 England was placed at the mercy of the Crown ; but he has 
 been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a 
 foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated their 
 crimes. The victims of tyranny have been compensated for 
 their sufferings. Under these circumstances it would be un- 
 wise to persevere in that course which was justifiable and 
 necessary when we first met, after a long interval, and found 
 the whole administration one mass of abuses. It is time to 
 take heed that we do not so pursue our victory over despotism 
 as to run into anarchy. It was not in our power to overturn 
 the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without 
 
 3* 
 
36 
 
 shocks which have loosened the foundations of government. 
 Now that those institutions have fallen, we must hasten to 
 prop the edifice which it was lately our duty to batter. 
 Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look with jealousy on 
 schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment all 
 the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, 
 armed the sovereign.' Such were the views of those men 
 of whom the excellent Falkland may be regarded as the 
 leader, * a beautiful model,' says Lord Woodhouselee, ' of the 
 most exalted and virtuous patriotism.' " 
 
 In short, the victory of the Long Parliament over 
 Charles was now complete, by virtue of the use of the 
 constitutional weapon, viz., the right of voting or with- 
 holding the supplies, against which he was provided 
 with no defensive armour of more avail than would 
 have been the " tissue of woven air " in which some 
 lady novelist has clothed her heroine, and by the firm 
 and steady use of which every other reform w 7 hich the 
 nation deliberately desired could be procured. The 
 Celtic Irish were far from having such a weapon against 
 the tyranny of Strafford. They had none. 
 
 I am far from undertaking to answer for it, that if 
 Charles had been victorious, he and his Irish Cavaliers 
 would have been satisfied that he should be confirmed 
 simply in his now limited prerogatives ; but, at all 
 events, their utter defeat prevented their showing the 
 world how far they would have gone, if victorious. 
 This I think is the sole advantage Charles has had 
 over his enemies. Their success enabled them to de- 
 monstrate that their policy was to end in the utter 
 
37 
 
 subversion of the Constitution, and the substitution of 
 sword-law under Oliver I. The first great stride 
 towards this consummation had already been taken, by 
 the Act passed (before the ink of a statute establishing 
 triennial parliaments was well dry), depriving the King 
 of the power of dissolving this Parliament without the 
 consent of the two houses. By his consent to this 
 Act, Charles sealed his own fate. He deprived him- 
 self of his time-honoured prerogative ; but this was of 
 small importance indeed compared with the prerogative 
 of which it deprived the people of England. It was 
 their unquestioned right, at each election of members 
 of the House of Commons, to control and direct the 
 government of the country, by the return of mem- 
 bers whose political sentiments accorded with their 
 own. If the Triennial Act had taken root, the first 
 House of Commons elected under it, by a people ex- 
 asperated by Charles's tyranny, would no doubt have 
 acted just as the Long Parliament at first did ; but 
 it is to me perfectly incredible, that they would not, 
 before 1649, have returned an overwhelming majority 
 to stay the impending ruin of the Constitution ; and 
 Charles would either have faithfully carried out his 
 solemn and public protestation* before his whole army, 
 
 * " I do promise, in the presence of Almighty God, and as I hope for 
 his blessing and protection, that I will to the utmost of my power, 
 defend and maintain the reformed Protestant religion, established in 
 the Church of England, and by the Grace of God in the same will live 
 and die. 
 
 " I desire that the laws may ever be the measure of my government, 
 
38 
 
 or he would have been dethroned as infamous and 
 faithless, and his crown have been bestowed upon his 
 son ; not as it was in 1660, but with well-defined and 
 strictly constitutional limitations ; and the nation and 
 the saints would have been spared the crime, or as 
 Tallyrand would have preferred to call it, " worse, the 
 blunder," of the murder of Charles. 
 
 I know of no two persons of their time more worthy 
 of profound commiseration than Charles I. and his 
 grandmother. Mary came to Scotland, a widow, still 
 in her teens, to be advised and guided by a band of 
 statesmen as hard-headed and hard-hearted, astute and 
 selfish, as could be found at that time in any court of 
 Christendom. Her government was conducted with 
 surprising good sense and discretion till the sad day 
 of her most unfortunate marriage with Darnley, whom 
 
 and that the liberty and property of the subject may be preserved by 
 them with the same care as my own just rights. And if it please 
 God, by his blessing on this army, raised for my necessary defence, to 
 preserve me from the present rebellion, I do solemnly and faithfully 
 promise in the sight of God to maintain the just privileges and freedom 
 of Parliament, and to govern to the utmost of my power by the known 
 statutes and customs of the kingdom, and particularly to observe in- 
 violably the laws to which I have given my consent this parliament. 
 Meanwhile if this emergence, and the great necessity to which I am 
 driven, beget any violation of law, I hope it shall be imputed by God 
 and man to the authors of this war, not to me, who have so earnestly 
 sought to preserve the peace of the kingdom. 
 
 " When I willingly fail in these particulars, I shall expect no aid or 
 relief from man, nor any protection from above. But in this resolution 
 I hope for the cheerful assistance of all good men, and am confident of 
 the blessing of Heaven." 
 
 The date of this protestation was October, 1642, shortly before the 
 battle of Edge Hill. 
 
39 
 
 I will not call a brainless and heartless brute, because 
 of my regard and respect for my horse and dog (ani- 
 mals morally very superior to him) ; but assuredly this 
 marriage was at the root of her ruin. It was not pos- 
 sible that she should not rejoice at his death, but I am 
 convinced she was not guilty of it. Her marriage 
 with Both well was an act of insanity; but she ex- 
 piated her errors and sins by a terrible punishment — by 
 her eighteen years' imprisonment, one day of which 
 Elizabeth had not the shadow of a right to inflict. 
 Well might she, as each Spring of her weary bondage 
 returned, lament in the touching words Bums puts into 
 her mouth : — 
 
 f< Now blooms the lily on the bank, 
 
 The primrose down the brae, 
 The hawthorn's budding in the glen, 
 
 And milk-white is the slae. 
 The meanest hind in fair Scotland 
 
 May rove their sweets amang. 
 But I the Queen of all Scotland 
 
 Maim bide in prison Strang." 
 
 Equally unjustifiable was her execution, after Eliza- 
 beth had failed in her attempt to suborn the despatch 
 of her cousin-queen in private, by her keeper. 
 
 I hold that Charles I. also is worthy of great com- 
 miseration. He was a despot, and it was the duty no 
 less than the right of his subjects to demand and 
 secure, if necessary at the sword s point, the reasonable 
 and constitutional liberties which had been, in fact, 
 
40 
 
 granted by Charles, and secured by Act of Parliament 
 in 1641. But it should not be forgotten, in mitigation 
 of our condemnation of him, that his father preached 
 to him from his cradle that kings reign by right divine, 
 and that he was misled, too, by the example of his 
 arbitrary predecessors from Henry VII. to 1625; yet he 
 never addressed his loving Commons thus : "I dis- 
 charge you from presuming to meddle with state 
 affairs, which are matters above your comprehension," 
 as Elizabeth did ; nor did he ever pack a House of 
 Commons as James did in Ireland, and defend his 
 creation of forty boroughs for that purpose with char- 
 acteristic unwisdom by a fool-born jest — 
 
 " What is it to you," said J ames to the gentlemen deputed 
 to remonstrate against the proceeding, "whether I make many 
 or few boroughs ? My council may consider the fitness, if I 
 require it. But what if I had made forty noblemen and four 
 hundred boroughs ? The more, the merrier ; the fewer, the 
 better cheer!" 
 
 And if Charles had been permitted to live a few 
 years longer, how he might have marvelled at his own 
 moderation, on hearing that Cromwell had expelled, 
 by Pride's chalybeate purge, about 200 members of 
 the House of Commons, at the point of the bayonet, to 
 ensure his having a mockery of a House of Commons 
 that would cashier the House of Lords, and vote the 
 death of Charles. 
 
 I have now put before the reader the three great 
 
41 
 
 causes of the Ulster rebellion of 1641 : First, the 
 cruel and perfectly unjust confiscation of the lands 
 imniemorially possessed by the people of six counties 
 of the province. Secondly, the oppression suffered 
 under penal laws by all the Konian Catholics of 
 Ireland, and the grinding tyranny established by 
 Strafford. And thirdly, the strong desire to support 
 their somewhat friendly King against their inveterate 
 and detested enemies, the Puritans of England and 
 Scotland. 
 
 "Without provocation," says Hume, describing the com- 
 mencement of the outbreak, on the authority of Sir John 
 Temple, " without opposition, the astonished English, hying 
 in profound peace and full security, were massacred by 
 their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long upheld a 
 continued intercourse of kindness and good offices." Again : 
 " All the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise — all the 
 lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of 
 despair — could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and 
 cruelty derived f rom no cause." 
 
 What I have to write will expose the grossest exag- 
 geration in this description ; what I have written 
 clearly proves either inexcusable ignorance or falsifi- 
 cation on the part of the historian as to the absence of 
 injury and the causelessness of the outbreak. I do 
 not question that very many murders and massacres 
 on a small scale were perpetrated by the Irish during 
 the ten or twelve years of this terrible civil war ; but 
 I maintain that no civil war ever occurred under 
 
42 
 
 similar circumstances without similar deplorable con- 
 sequences ; and further, that none ever will occur un- 
 der similar circumstances without similar outrages, till 
 mankind have learned and reduced to practice the 
 precept, that when smitten on one cheek they shall turn 
 the other to the smiter. I assert also that these Irish 
 outrages were perpetrated by enraged mobs, impelled 
 by what Burke calls " the merciless policy of fear," or 
 by wicked savages, such as exist among all bodies of 
 men. The atrocities in both kinds were liberally re- 
 torted by the Government and by the disciplined forces 
 under its control. I will not assert, nor do I think, 
 the atrocities of either side in any degree excusable ; 
 but I hold that the atrocities of a rude and ignorant 
 mob are less inexcusable than those of an organised, 
 civilized, and ultra-religious government. I make no 
 terms with cruelty, and impartially abhor it, no matter 
 when, where, by whom or against whom it is per- 
 petrated ; even though the perpetrators believe, or 
 pretend to believe, that they murder for the love of 
 God, or to promote the cause of "The immaculate 
 spouse of Christ."* 
 
 The rebellion broke out in Ulster on the 23rd of 
 October, 1641, and speedily became general through- 
 out the province. It was a part of the plan of the 
 insurgents to seize upon the Castle of Dublin, and to 
 
 * The presumptuous and profaue name given at this time by the 
 Scottish Covenanters to the Established Church of Scotland. 
 
43 
 
 supply themselves from it with arms and ammunition ; 
 but this part of the plot was completely defeated by 
 information conveyed to the Lords Justices (Parsons 
 and Borlase) by Owen O'Connolly, on the night of 
 October the 22nd. 
 
 The character of the chief governors powerfully 
 influenced the course of affairs. There is good reason 
 to believe that they adopted measures deliberately with 
 the intention of promoting and extending the rebel- 
 lion, with a view to consequent confiscations. They 
 were both staunch Puritans ; but Borlase was a mere 
 soldier, and was led by Parsons. Parsons was an 
 extremely wicked man. 
 
 " This was another most selfish and successful adventurer ; 
 and, therefore, very much interested in the extirpation of the 
 native race. He got immense grants of lands in Meath, 
 Cavan, Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, and Fermanagh. He was 
 eventually appointed Surveyor-General, and in this capacity 
 became enormously wealthy."* 
 
 The following revolting narrative is abstracted by 
 Cooke Taylor, in his Civil Wars of Ireland, from the 
 statement in Carte's Life of Ormond: — 
 
 " Bryan and Tuiiough Byrne were the rightful owners of a 
 tract in Leinster, called the Banelaghs. Its vicinity to the 
 capital made it a desirable plunder ; and accordingly Parsons, 
 Lord Esmond, and some others, determined that it should be 
 forfeited. The Byrnes, however, had powerful interest in 
 England, and obtained a patent grant of their lands from the 
 
 * The Eev. G. Hill, The MacDonnells of Antrim, p. 59, note 38. 
 
44 
 
 King. Parsons and Esmond were not to be disappointed so 
 easily. They flatly refused to pass the royal grant; and, 
 deeming the destruction of the Byrnes necessary to their 
 safety, they had them arrested on a charge of treason. The 
 witnesses provided to support the charge were Duffe, whom 
 Turlough Byrne, as a justice of the peace, had sent to prison 
 for cow-stealing, MacArt and MacGriffin, two notorious 
 thieves, and a farmer named Archer. This last long resisted 
 the attempts to force him to become a perjured witness ; and 
 his obstinacy was punished by the most horrible tortures. He 
 was burned in the fleshy parts of the body with hot irons ; 
 placed on a gridiron over a charcoal fire ; and finally flogged 
 until nature could support him no longer, and he promised to 
 swear anything that the Commissioners pleased. Bills of in- 
 dictment were presented to two successive grand juries in the 
 County of Carlow, and at once ignored, as the suborned wit- 
 nesses were unworthy of credit, and contradicted themselves 
 and each other. For this opposition to the will of Government 
 the jurors were summoned to the Star Chamber in Dublin and 
 heavily fined. The witnesses MacArt and MacGriffin, being 
 no longer useful, were given up to the vengeance of the law. 
 They were hanged for robbery at Kilkenny, and with their 
 dying breath declared the innocence of the Byrnes. The 
 ingenuity of Parsons and his accomplices was not yet ex- 
 hausted. The Byrnes presented themselves before the court 
 of King's Bench in Dublin to answer any charge that might 
 be brought against them. No prosecutor appeared, and yet 
 the Chief Justice refused to grant their discharge. During 
 two years repeated orders were transmitted from England, 
 directing that the Byrnes should be freed from further pro- 
 cess, and restored to their estates ; but the faction in the 
 Castle evaded and disobeyed every mandate. At length, on 
 learning that the Duke of Bichmond, the generous patron of 
 the persecuted Irishmen, was dead, it was determined by 
 Parsons to complete the destruction of the victims. He had 
 before been baffled by the integrity of a grand jury ; on this 
 
45 
 
 occasion he took proper precautions to prevent a similar dis- 
 appointment. The bills were sent before the grand jurors of 
 Wicklow, the majority of whom had obtained grants of the 
 Byrne property, and all were intimately connected with the 
 prosecutors. The evidence placed before this impartial body 
 was the depositions of four criminals, who were pardoned on 
 condition of giving evidence ; but even these wretches were 
 not brought in person before the jury. Their depositions 
 were taken in Irish by one of the prosecutors, and translated 
 by one of his creatures. These suspicious documents, how- 
 ever, proved sufficient, and the bills were found. 
 
 " To procure additional evidence, it was necessary to use 
 expedients still more atrocious. A number of persons were 
 seized and subjected to the mockery of trial by martial law, 
 though the regular courts were sitting. The most horrid 
 tortures were inflicted on those who refused to accuse the 
 Byrnes ; and some of the most obstinate were punished with 
 death. But the firmness of the victims presented obstacles 
 which were not overcome before some virtuous Englishmen 
 represented the affair so strongly to the King that he was 
 shamed into interference. He sent over Commissioners from 
 England to investigate the entire affair. The Byrnes were 
 brought before them and honourably acquitted. Their lives 
 were thus saved ; but Parsons had previously contrived to 
 obtain a great portion of their estates by patent, and was 
 permitted to keep them undisturbed. 
 
 " This narrative, which has been rather softened in its hor- 
 rible details, may appear to many too shocking to be believed ; 
 but all the documents are still preserved in the library of the 
 Dublin University, and it is circumstantially related by Carte, 
 a historian remarkable for his hostility to the Irish." 
 
 Owen O'Connolly was immediately despatched with 
 information respecting the insurrection to the Lord 
 Lieutenant, the Earl of Leinster, which was forthwith 
 communicated to the English Houses of Parliament. 
 
46 
 
 Sir Jolin Temple and Lord Clarendon are the historians 
 from whom, in an especial manner, most Protestants 
 have taken the accounts they give of the atrociously 
 inhuman proceedings of the rebels. Hume continually 
 quotes Temple ; and I cannot deny that he had appa- 
 rently good reason to trust his narrative. Certainly 
 nothing short of the strongest facts could discredit his 
 and Clarendon's testimony. Temple, who was Master 
 of the Eolls in Ireland, and a Privy Councillor, pub- 
 lished his history within a few years of the out- 
 break. He had the best opportunities for procuring 
 reliable information respecting the conduct of the in- 
 surgents, and saw with his own eyes in Dublin some of 
 the deplorable consequences of it. Clarendon also en- 
 joyed most unusual opportunities for procuring correct 
 information. Temple's testimony is that 150,000 
 Protestants were slaughtered in the first two months of 
 the rebellion ; Clarendon's, that 40,000 or 50,000 were 
 slain before they had any suspicion of their danger. 
 
 Mr. Froude gives the following statement in the 
 beginning of his account of the rebellion : — 
 
 " On December the 1st — I am particular about these dates, 
 because it is insisted that the story of the massacre was an 
 afterthought, made up in the following year to justify the 
 confiscation of the estates of the insurgents — on December 
 the 1st a petition [probably written a fortnight before] was 
 presented to the English Parliament, signed by the Irish 
 Council, stating that there were then 40,000 rebels in the 
 field. ' Their tyranny,' says this document, ' is so great, that 
 
47 
 
 they put both man, woman, and child that are Protestants to 
 the sword, not sparing either age, sex, degree, or reputation. 
 They have stripped naked many Protestants, and so sent them 
 to the city, men and women. They have ravished many 
 virgins and women before their husbands' faces, and taken 
 their children and dashed their brains against the walls in the 
 sight of their parents, and at length destroyed them likewise 
 without pity or humanity.' 
 
 " On December the 14th the following letter from Ireland 
 was read in the English Parliament : ' All I can tell you is 
 the miserable state we continue under, for the rebels daily 
 increase in men and munition in all parts, except the province 
 of Munster, exercising all manner of cruelties, and striving 
 who can be most barbarously exquisite in tormenting the 
 poor Protestants, cutting off their ears, fingers, and hands, 
 plucking out their eyes, boiling the hands of the little child- 
 ren before their mothers' faces, stripping women naked, and 
 ripping them up.' 
 
 " On the 12th of December, 1641, Sir John Temple writes 
 to Charles, at this time in Edinburgh, as follows, respecting 
 the atrocious proceedings he attributes to the rebels : — f Thus 
 enraged, and armed by these pretences, they march on, furi- 
 ously destroying all the English, sparing neither sex nor age 
 throughout the kingdom, most barbarously murdering them, 
 and that with greater cruelty than ever was yet used among 
 Turks and infidels. I will not trouble your Majesty with the 
 sad story of our miseries here. Many thousands of our nation 
 are already perished under their cruel hands, and the poor 
 remainder of them go up and down, desolate, naked, and most 
 miserably afflicted with cold and hunger, all inns and other 
 places in the country being prohibited, under penalties, to en- 
 tertain or give any kind of relief to them, so as here we sit, 
 wearied out with the most lamentable and fearful outcries of 
 our poor distressed countrymen, and have no means to afford 
 them any redress, nor indeed any great hopes long to 
 preserve ourselves and this city from the fury of the rebels, 
 
48 
 
 who threaten us with ruin and desolation.' " (Froude, English 
 in Ireland, voL i., p. 105.) 
 
 I request especial attention to the circumstances that 
 the two first of these documents were addressed to a 
 body at a safe distance from the scene of the manu- 
 factured atrocities, of which the Puritan majority were 
 greedy to hear, and prepared to believe any tale of 
 barbarities perpetrated by Irish savages and idolators. 
 
 It is now my turn to call, like Mr. Froude, 
 special attention to the date, but to the authorship also, 
 of the following document, addressed, not to strangers 
 in London, but to gentlemen residing among the 
 barbarians, and consequently well aware of whatever 
 excesses they had been guilty of. The date of the 
 following commission is December the 23rd, 1641, at 
 which time Temple asserts that 150,000 Protestant 
 throats had been cut in Ulster; Lord Clarendon, 40,000 
 or 50,000 ; and it was issued by the same Lords Jus- 
 tices who presented to the Long Parliament the first 
 of the three documents just quoted. 
 
 " Charles, by the Grace of God, 
 King of England, France, and 
 Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. 
 
 "To our well-beloved Henry Jones, 
 Dean of Kilmore, Eoger Puttock, 
 William Hitchcock, Eandal Adams, 
 John Sterne, William Aldrich, Henry 
 Brereton, and John Watsons, greet- 
 ing. 
 
 " A Commission to di- 
 verse eminent Pro- 
 testant clergymen in 
 Ireland to take exa- 
 minations on oath 
 concerning the Irish 
 rebellion. 
 
 Dated: December 23rd, 
 a.d. 1641. 
 
49 
 
 " Whereas divers wicked and disloyal people Lave lately 
 risen in arms in this kingdom, and robbed and spoiled many 
 of our good subjects, British and Protestants, who have been 
 separated from their several habitations, and scattered in most 
 lamentable manner ; and forasmuch as it is needful to take 
 due examination concerning the same, know ye that we, re- 
 posing special trust and confidence in your care, diligence, and 
 provident circumspection, have nominated you to be our Com- 
 missioners, and do hereby give unto you, or any two or more 
 of you, full power and authority, from time to time to call 
 before you, and examine upon oath on the holy Evangelists 
 (which hereby we authorise you, or any two or more of you 
 to administer, as well to all such persons as have been robbed 
 and despoiled, as to all witnesses that can give testimony 
 therein) what robberies and spoils have been committed on 
 them since the 22nd of October last, or shall hereafter be 
 committed on them, or any of them ; what the particulars were 
 or are, whereof they were or shall be so robbed and spoiled ; 
 to what value, by whom, and what their names are, and where 
 they now or last dwelt who committed those robberies ; and 
 on what day or night the said robberies or spoils were com- 
 mitted or done ; what traitorous or disloyal words, speeches 
 or actions were then, or at any other time, uttered or com- 
 mitted by those robbers, or any of them, and how often ; and 
 all other circumstances concerning the said particulars, and 
 every of them : And you, our said Commissioners, are to 
 reduce to writing all the examinations which you, or any two 
 or more of you, shall take as aforesaid ; and the same to return 
 to our justices and council of our realm of Ireland, under the 
 hands and seals of any two or more of you, as aforesaid. 
 
 "Witness our right trusty and well-beloved Counsellors, 
 
 Sir William Parsons, Knight and Baronet, and Sir 
 
 John Borlace, Knight, our Justices of our said 
 
 realm of Ireland. 
 " Dublin, the 23rd of December, in the seventeenth year 
 
 of our reign." 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 The scandalous calumny and falsehood which this 
 commission renders patent, in the letter bearing date 
 about a month earlier than this, of the Lords Justices 
 to the English Parliament, makes it a difficult matter 
 for me to express my indignation in decorous terms. It 
 may, perhaps, be said that they were themselves misled 
 by evidence given them by terrified, stripped, and 
 starving fugitives. If so, where is their letter to the 
 Commons, retracting their calumny ? There is no such 
 letter. 
 
 " Never sure," says Counsellor Candour, who is made to 
 plead in favour of the Irish Roman Catholics in Mr. Brooke's 
 excellent Tryal of the Cause of the Roman Catholics ; on a 
 Special Commission, directed to Lord Chief Justice Reason, Lord 
 Chief Baron Interest, and Mr. Justice Clemency, Wednesday, 
 August 5th, 1761 : " Never, sure, was a more minnte inquiry 
 enjoined to be made by Protestants of damages done to Pro- 
 testants : it reaches even to the treason of words and circum- 
 stances. But is there any inquiry enjoined here concerning 
 murder, or are any such murders intimated, or supposed to 
 have been committed before the issuing of this commission ? 
 The Protestants, it is true, are here said to have been robbed 
 and spoiled, and driven from their habitations, and scattered 
 abroad ; but they are called together again, with their adhe- 
 rents and witnesses, to be examined, vivd wee as one would 
 imagine, touching the damages they had suffered ; a pretty 
 strong implication that they had not been murdered. For 
 otherwise it should seem that a commission to inquire into 
 the murder as well as the spoil of 150,000 ought to have been 
 directed to such magistrates as iEacus and Rhadamanthus, 
 who might have authority to take the depositions of the 
 deceased." 
 
51 
 
 Soon, however, numerous murders — especially of the 
 clergy of the Established and Presbyterian churches, who, 
 with the exception of the truly Christian Bedell, had exas- 
 perated the people by the stinging abuse and contempt 
 they thought it their duty to pour forth continually on 
 the cherished religion of the Celtic Irish — and many 
 partial massacres were perpetrated by mobs of peasants, 
 called soldiers, under the leading of Sir Phelim O'Neill, 
 an inhuman leader, without doubt ; yet even he shot 
 his foster-brother (equivalent, in the eyes of the Irish 
 of that time, to the putting to death of his brother by 
 blood) on account of his having killed Lord Caulfield, 
 then a prisoner in Sir Phelim s custody. 
 
 The treatment of the expelled English and Scotch 
 by the insurgents was extremely inhuman. In the 
 November of an unusually severe winter the Protestants 
 were often stripped naked, and driven out without food, 
 to make the best of their way to the nearest place of 
 refuge. No doubt many children, women, and old 
 men must have perished of cold and hunger ; and, 
 assuredly, all of these deaths are fairly to be added to 
 the number of those persons who were directly mur- 
 dered or massacred. Great numbers of the fugitives 
 died also, after reaching places of refuge, by famine and 
 its consequent pestilence ; but for these deaths I hold 
 England and Scotland responsible, whose barbarous 
 apathy in not sending immediate military aid, arms, 
 food, and means of transport across the channel to 
 
 4* 
 
52. 
 
 their wretched countrymen, was unintelligibly and 
 revoltingly heartless. Even with regard to the numbers 
 who must have died on their way to places of safety, 
 and in those places, there is as usual great exaggeration. 
 The Protestants had possession of Drogheda in Louth. 
 In Cavan the palace and cathedral of Bishop Bedell, 
 even the graveyard, afforded protection to many. In 
 Fermanagh, Enniskillen; in Tyrone, Omagh, Newtown- 
 stewart, and Augher Castle ; in Donegall, Ballyshannon, 
 Lifford, and Letterkenny ; in Deny, the City of Lon- 
 donderry and Coleraine ; in the County Antrim, Larne, 
 Antrim, Carrickfergus, Belfast, and Lisburn ; and in 
 Downshire, Newtownarcls, and Downpatrick, were all 
 held throughout the war by the Protestants. I do not 
 believe that any of the fugitives were more than thirty 
 miles distant from a place of refuge. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that the Irish had a 
 monopoly of massacre and murder. Scotch troops 
 from Carrickfergus perpetrated a very shocking mas- 
 sacre, on Sunday, January the 9th, 1642, in the neigh- 
 bouring Island-Magee, a peninsula running out some 
 five or six miles between Larne Lough and the North 
 Channel. There is no dispute as to the massacre ; but 
 the Eoman Catholic writers contend that this was the 
 first massacre perpetrated in Ulster, and that those 
 perpetrated by the Irish were retaliatory. The Pro- 
 testant authorities insist, on the contrary, that the 
 Island-Magee massacre was provoked by previous Irish 
 
53 
 
 massacres, and a hot controversy on this subject was 
 long carried on between the parties. Dr. Reid, a very 
 painstaking and usually accurate historian ( History of 
 the Presbyterian Church in Ireland) asserts that this 
 massacre was retaliatory, and that there were no Scotch 
 soldiers in Carrickfergus for three months after the 
 date of it. The massacre by the Irish alluded to was 
 perpetrated by a mob about forty miles from Carrick- 
 fergus, on the 4th of January, 1642, when, more than 
 two months after the 23rd of October, 1641, there was 
 not, according to Temple, a surviving Protestant to 
 carry the report of it, but when in truth there were 
 few or none of the survivors who had not fled to Cole- 
 raine, Carrickfergus, or Belfast. Dr. Reid was either 
 ignorant of the fact or forgot it, that Charles sent from 
 Scotland to the north of Ulster, in the very beginning 
 of the insurrection, 1,500 men of the lately disbanded 
 Scottish army."" I have no direct authority to say 
 that these men were landed at Carrickfergus ; but I do 
 not doubt it. They might have been landed at Dun- 
 dalk, Carlingford, Newry, Coleraine, or Derry ; but the 
 three first-named towns were then in possession of the 
 insurgents, and till June, 1642. In Derry the inhabi- 
 tants were organizing a force from among themselves 
 for their defence ; and Coleraine, a few days later, was 
 besieged by a tumultuary force of ten or twelve hundred 
 men, under Alaster McDonnell, who would have been 
 
 * Wright's History of Ireland, vol. i., p. 679. 
 
54 
 
 driven like chaff before the wind by 1,500 Scottish 
 soldiers, if they had been in the town. 
 
 I therefore conclude, as the French say, "par voie 
 d 'exclusion " that Charles's force was sent to Carrick- 
 fergus, and were the perpetrators of the Island-Magee 
 massacre. The controversy on this subject has, how- 
 ever, been put to rest by direct testimony, with which 
 Dr. Eeid could not have been acquainted. A History 
 of the Warr of Ireland from 1641 to 1653, by a 
 British officer of the regiment of Sir John Clotworthy, 
 afterwards Lord Massarene, has been lately published, 
 which occasionally throws light on the transactions of 
 these times. 
 
 " I remember," says he, " about Christmas that winter of the 
 warrs [1641] there came to us at Antrim, with their captain, 
 one Lindsay, a civil man, who loved no murder, out of . . 
 . . the number of about forty horsemen as a troop, and had 
 a horn for a trumpet, all living about Tullahogue [near 
 Dungannon, in the County Tyrone], who left their wives and 
 children, with their goods, with the enemy, who all concluded 
 they were all destroyed, and in revenge they could not endure 
 to see any Irishman; but they must beat him to destroy him. 
 So one night they left Antrim, their garrison, unknown to all 
 their officers but their own lieutenant, Barnet Lindsay, and 
 fell on Mr. Upton's tenants, a gentleman who hated to see or 
 hear of innocent blood drawn, and would save them if he 
 could, but was then in Carrickfergus ; and they murdered 
 about eighty persons, men, women, and children, near Temple- 
 patrick, at which other Scotts took example, and did the like 
 in Island-Magee. Then the Irish, on the other side, in the 
 County of Antrim, to be revenged, spared not to destroy the 
 Scottish where they could get advantage, as at . . . Such 
 
55 
 
 was the fury of both Scotts and Irish for blood and revenge 
 that they thought it good service to God to destroy one an- 
 other ; as indeed it continued so till in May the Scottish army 
 came out of Scotland, consisting of 10,000 soldiers, at least 
 by that name, under the command of General Leslie and his 
 Major-General Munroe, and until Owen MacArt [Owen Eoe 
 O'Neill] came over from beyond seas, and was Captain-Gene- 
 ral of the Irish of Ulster, who both gave fair quarters like 
 soldiers, and halted these inhumane acts before done." 
 
 " As for the number of the British murdered the first win- 
 ter of the wars, I will acquaint the reader with the same as 
 far as I could learn, after scrutiny made into the same as I 
 said before. The most was committed in Ulster, and it did 
 not exceed through all Ulster above the sixtieth part held 
 forth by those authors I named before." 
 
 In July Sir John dotworthy sailed across Lough 
 Neagh with 500 men, and took Fort Mount) oy, near 
 Dungannon, in Tyrone, without opposition. 
 
 " Here," says the author just quoted, " there came to us daily 
 women and children of the British, so much that they were 
 sent away the first fair wind to Antrim, for they could not be 
 maintained [viz., at Mountjoy] ; and some of winch were the 
 wives and children of that troop was mentioned before, who 
 gave them up for lost and drew much innocent blood in 
 revenge of them." 
 
 This, so far as I know, was the first massacre per- . 
 petrated in the County Antrim. It had, at least, the 
 bad excuse that the perpetrators believed their own 
 wives and children had been slaughtered. I think it 
 of very small consequence which party began the 
 massacres. Both had now " screwed their courage" to 
 the massacring point, and as to which should shed the 
 
56 
 
 first blood, this was a matter of mere chance ; but my 
 narrative proves that Dr. Eeid was mistaken, both as 
 to who committed the first massacre in the County 
 of Antrim, and as to the fact that there were Scotch 
 soldiers in Carrickfergus at the time of it. Dr. Keid's 
 account of the military surprise and slaughter of sixty 
 or eighty soldiers, and subsequent massacre by a mob is 
 thus described by him (History of Presbyterianism in 
 Ireland, vol. i., p. 324) : — 
 
 " On the morning of Monday, the 3d of January [1642] a 
 party of Irish rebels, from both sides of the river Bann, 
 headed by Alaster MacDonnell * (Colkittagh), surprised a de- 
 tachment of British stationed at Portna [on the Bann, about 
 five miles from Ballymoney and the same distance from 
 Ballymena], near Kilrea, under the command of Captains 
 Fergus McDougall, Peebles, and Glover, and massacred be- 
 tween sixty and eighty of them in their beds." 
 
 Mr. Froude misquotes Dr. Eeid, and thus scanda- 
 lously calumniates Alaster McDonnell, as follows : — 
 
 * I [iiii bound both by clanship and kinship to vindicate, so far as I 
 can with truth, the calumniated character of this remarkable man. He 
 is the " Colkitto" of Milton's sonnet. The poet had been ridiculed on 
 account of a rather absurd name (Tetrachordon) which he had given to 
 a book lately published by him. 
 
 " Why, is it," he says, " harder, sirs, than Gordon, 
 Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp ? 
 These rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek, 
 That would have made Quinctilian stare and gasp," 
 Newton, in his edition of Milton, conjectures that the two last names, 
 MacDonnell or Galasp, were those of Presbyterian clergymen. I have 
 no doubt the three last belong to Alaster. Col or Colla Kittagh (Col the 
 left-handed) was his father's name ; his grandfather's was Gillaspie 
 (Archibald), Milton's Galasp. It was usual in the Highlands of Scot- 
 
57 
 
 " Alaster MacDonnell had destroyed some English families 
 in their beds at Kilrea. Seventy or eighty old men, women, 
 and children had been killed by the same party near Ballin- 
 toy and Oldstown. On the Sunday following, a party of the 
 expelled farmers, maddened by their losses, accompanied 
 by a few soldiers from Carrickfergus, in revenge slew thirty 
 Catholics in Island-Magee." 
 
 Dr. Keid's account is true. Mr. Froude converts 
 the slaughter of soldiers in a night attack into a mas- 
 sacre of men, women, and children. There is not a 
 shadow of evidence that Alaster McDonnell had any 
 concern in the immediately subsequent massacres of 
 women and children, and the burning of Bally- 
 money ; and the testimony of the officer of Sir John 
 Clotworthy's regiment refutes the statement regarding 
 the Island-Magee atrocity. 
 
 The following narrative is requisite to account for 
 Alaster s night attack on the soldiers at Portna. Lord 
 Antrim was a Roman Catholic, and a staunch Eoyalist 
 all his life. He was a personal friend of Charles, and 
 
 laud, to ensure the identity of a person named, to add one or more of 
 the person's immediate forefathers, and accordingly Alaster was often 
 designated as Alaster MacColl, MacGillaspie, MacColl Dhu, Mac, etc. 
 (Alexander, the son of Coll, son of Archibald, son of Black Coll, etc.) 
 Sir Walter Scott says, in the Legend of Montrose, that he was a Scottish 
 islander. His father was certainly born in Ireland, but owned the 
 islands of Colonsa, Oronsa, Staffa, and Iona, and was at this time, by 
 the death of Sir James McDonnell, without issue, chief of the old 
 family of Isla Cantyre and the Glens. Argyle, Gillaspie Grumach (Ill- 
 favoured Archibald) was now using his best endeavours to drive this 
 family out of Scotland, inwhi3h he succeeded, and would have entirely 
 extinguished it but for the retreat they had in the County Antrim. 
 
58 
 
 a favourite of Henrietta Maria. He was one of the 
 richest landholders in Ireland in 1641. He married in 
 1636, in his father's lifetime, while Lord Dunluce, 
 Catherine Manners, one of the richest ladies in Eng- 
 land. She was daughter and heiress of Lord De Eos, 
 afterwards Earl of Eutland, and widow of George 
 Villiers, the murdered Duke of Buckingham, who left 
 her richly dowered ; yet their faithful devotion to the 
 royal cause had reduced them to beggary in 1648. In 
 a letter in cypher, dated 18 th February, 1648, to 
 Cardinal Panzirolo, Einuccini, the Pope's Nuncio in 
 Ireland, writes : — 
 
 " The Duchess of Buckingham, now the wife of the Mar- 
 quis of Antrim, who formerly testified the liveliest zeal for 
 the Catholic religion, has absolutely no means of support, 
 save six hundred livres granted her by the Supreme Council. 
 As it is very difficult to get in this sum, the poor lady, on the 
 departure of her husband for France, was reduced to ask the 
 loan of two hundred crowns, which I immediately advanced 
 to her. But as I much doubt its being repaid, and perhaps 
 shall be obliged to assist her again, I think it advisable to 
 acquaint your Eminence, and I trust that the disposal in this 
 charitable act of a part of the Papal subsidy will be approved 
 by his Holiness, of whose benevolence this lady is truly 
 worthy, and I shall endeavour to act in the case so that no 
 trouble or difficulty shall accrue to his Holiness." 
 
 Archibald Stewart, head of a family that had mi- 
 grated from Bute to Ballintoy, in the County Antrim, 
 in the reign of Elizabeth, was appointed Lord Antrim's 
 agent — or, as Strafford calls him, "his man" — in 1630. 
 
59 
 
 Shortly before the outbreak of 1641, Stewart was em- 
 ployed by Lord Antrim to raise a regiment, which, it 
 need not be said, he intended for the support of 
 Charles. The regiment, however, which Stewart 
 raised, consisted of 600 Scottish Presbyterians, 
 of course staunch Parliamentarians, 100 Highland 
 Eoman Catholics, under Alaster McColl, and 100 Irish 
 Eoman Catholics, under one of the O'Cahans, of 
 Dunseverick Castle, beside the Giant's Causeway, the 
 ruins of which still exist. These 200 Catholics 
 were of course staunch Eoyalists. As soon as the 
 time for action arrived, this regiment naturally and 
 inevitably fell into two factions, each earnestly desirous 
 of cutting the throats of the other at the first oppor- 
 tunity ; as naturally and inevitably as a regiment 
 formed at the present time of 600 Antrim Orangemen 
 and 200 Kerry Fenians would, in the event of a 
 struggle to separate Ireland from England, fall into 
 two factions athirst each for the other s blood. 
 
 I have no authority for asserting that Stewart 
 was guilty of treachery to his employer on this occa- 
 sion ; but the circumstances led his enemies strongly 
 to suspect it. 
 
 The Presbyterians and the Irish and Highlanders 
 had now been scowling at one another for some 
 months ; their mutual hatred had had time to ferment 
 and acquire spiritual strength ; and, no doubt, the 
 former had exasperated the latter by frequent assu- 
 
60 
 
 ranees that they were on a quick march, by a facilis 
 descensus along " the primrose path to the everlasting 
 bonfire ;" while the latter, with less taste for polemics, 
 were no less confident that the Presbyterians were 
 speeding down that very path, minus the primroses, 
 but " with thorns also and thistles " instead. In the 
 beginning of 1642 the time for active measures had 
 arrived. McDonnell and O'Cahan had, no doubt, 
 anxiously debated the matter between themselves. 
 " We are one to three against those villain Round- 
 heads, and have no chance in an open-field fight. We 
 must proceed by stratagem. We must trap them 
 in a wooded defile, attack them by a night surprise, 
 or, etc." 
 
 They chose the surprise, and with the result related 
 above. Dr. Eeid represents Alaster McColl as " one 
 of the chiefs of that party " [the Roman Catholic], and 
 asserts that " a party of horse were despatched from 
 Carrickfergus to apprehend this influential Romanist."* 
 He quotes no authority, and I know of none for either 
 statement. What is certain is that Alaster was at this 
 time a young man quite unknown to fame, and Stewart 
 plainly shows that he did not share Reid's mistake, by 
 the appointment which he considered suitable to Alas- 
 ter's merits and claims — the command of a company in 
 the Antrim regiment. He is often spoken of as a near 
 relation, sometimes as a brother of Lord Antrim. 
 
 * Eeid, vol. i., p. 314. 
 
61 
 
 Lord Antrim's grandfather and Alaster's great 
 grandfather were brothers. They were consequently 
 second cousins once removed. 
 
 Alaster, however, rapidly acquired name and fame. 
 Stewart had 
 
 " Placed garrisons, principally composed of Scots, in the house 
 and church of Ballintoy [near the Giant's Causeway] under 
 Mr. Fullarton and Mr. Archibald Boyd ; in the Castle of Old- 
 stone, near Clough [four or five miles from Ballymena], under 
 Mr. Walter Kennedy ; and in such other parts through the 
 open country as might most effectually check the incursions 
 of the rebels."* " Immediately after the slaughter at Portnaw, 
 Alaster proceeded to attack the Castle of Oldstone, which 
 was the property of Donald Gorm [Blue-eyed] McDonnell. 
 McDonnell's force was joined, when near the castle, by that 
 under Art Oge 0'JSTeill, of the family of the last three lords 
 of that name, who was the first to summon Kennedy to sur- 
 render. Kennedy concluded that under the circumstances 
 'discretion was the better part of valour;' but with even 
 more than an ordinary amount of discretion he replied to Art 
 Oge's summons — that he ' would never surrender to an O'Neill 
 a castle that belonged to a MacDonnell.' Kennedy, a cannie 
 Scot, took care, of course, the words were spoken so as to be 
 heard by Alaster MacColl, and the latter was so flattered by 
 the reply that he swore to Kennedy by the cross on his sword 
 that provided the castle was peacefully surrendered, the gar- 
 rison would be permitted to pass out in safety, and that the 
 multitude of non-combatants, who had sought refuge therein, 
 might carry away all their effects and retire to their own 
 houses. This was more than Kennedy could have hoped for. 
 He surrendered, therefore, without delay, and, so far as 
 MacDonnell was concerned, or had the means of controlling 
 others, the terms of surrender were faithfully carried out."-f* 
 * Reid, vol. i., p. 314. 
 
 t Rev. G. Hill's MacDonnells of A ntrim, p. 4. 
 
62 
 
 Mr. Hill adds, in a note : — 
 
 " After the surrender, however, several persons were said 
 to have been massacred by a mob. The victims, including 
 women and children, were making their way towards Larne 
 or Carrickfergus, when they were attacked on the side of the 
 Pavel water, by a murderous gang, led by one Toole MacHugh 
 O'Hara. MacSkimin gives this statement on the authority of 
 one of the ' depositions ' preserved in the library of Trinity 
 College, Dublin." As for the other massacre under the walls 
 of Oldstone Castle, mentioned by Dr. Eeid, I know of no 
 other authority for it but his, and there is not a vestige of 
 evidence that Alaster MacColl had any knowledge of or 
 concern in either of them.* 
 
 * " The O'Haras in all their brauches were among the most active 
 and cruel of the Irish insurgents in the Route [an extensive district in 
 the North of the County Antrim] during 1641. After the surrender of 
 Clough Castle, many women and children who had been permitted by 
 the MacDonnells to go safely away to Larne, were followed and mas- 
 sacred on the banks of the Glenravel water by a fellow named O'Hara, 
 son of a Hugh O'Hara, and, no doubt, connected with some of the 
 families of that name then so numerous in the parishes of Lough Guile 
 and Ballymoney." —See McSkimin's History of Carrickfergus, 3rd Edi- 
 tion, p. 46. [Hill's Stewarts of Ballintoy, p. 16, note ad finem.] 
 
 " The insurgents in the County Derry forthwith crossed the Bann, 
 under a leader named John Mortimer, and united their forces with 
 those of Alaster MacDonnell and Tirlough Oge O'Cahan. From Port- 
 naw they marched to the residence of Sir James Macdonnell [Sir James 
 McDonnell was great grandson of Sorley Buy, and therefore he and 
 Lord Antrim were second cousins once removed], who dwelt at the 
 Vow, in the parish of Finvoy. They were joined by such of his tenants 
 as were able to carry arms, and also by the tenants of Donnell Gorm 
 MacDonnell, of Killoquin, in the parish of Basharkiu. 
 
 "In the meantime, the Irish inhabitants on both sides of the 
 Bann, fearing Archibald Stewart and such soldiers as he could collect, 
 in the absence of McDonnell, O'Cahan, and Mortimer, assembled in 
 multitudes, with their wives and children, burned a little town which 
 then stood at the Cross, near Ballymoney, and afterwards burned 
 Ballymoney, slaying all the British inhabitants they could lay hands on, 
 without distinction of age or sex. Thus the mere mob, frightened and 
 
63 
 
 Archibald Stewart had betaken himself, with a 
 remnant of his regiment, after the slaughter at Port- 
 naw, to Coleraine, and had recruited his force, probably 
 
 number. Stewart marched from Coleraine on the 10th 
 of February to attack the insurgents. McDonnell 
 encountered him on the following day at a place called 
 the Laney, within a mile of Ballymoney. He received 
 
 frenzied by the prevailing excitement, did actually more damage to life 
 and property than the regularly organised forces of the insurgents." 
 [Hill's Stewarts of Ballintoy, p. 12.] 
 
 " Whilst the mob were burning the village of Cross and the town of 
 Ballymoney, the regularly disciplined force, which had deserted from 
 Mr. Stewart, was led by the two MacDonnells, James and Alaster 
 MacColl, against the Castle of Clough, defended by Walter Kennedy. 
 After the capture of this place, James MacDonnell wrote the following 
 letter to Mr. Stewart, whom he addresses as cousin, and who must have 
 been in Coleraine when he received it. This letter is preserved in the 
 MS. volume already mentioned, at F. 3, 9. 3402 : — 
 
 " Cosen Archebald, I receaved your letter, and, to tell the truth, I 
 was ever of that opinion, and so were the most of all these gentlemen ; 
 
 that your owne selfe had no in you ; but certainly had I not 
 
 begun when I did, I and all these gentlemen, with wiffe and children 
 had been utterly destroyed ; of which I gott intelligence from one that 
 heard the plot a laying ; and those captains of yours (whom I may call 
 rather cowboyes) were, every daye, vexing ourselves and our tenants, 
 of purpose to pick quarrells, which no flesh was able to endure ; and 
 judge you whether I had reason to prevent such mischefe ; and I vow 
 to the Almighty, had they not thus forst me, as they did many others 
 besides me that would rather hang than goe on as they did, I would 
 stick as firm to your side as any of yourselves ; though I confesse it 
 would be the worse thinge for me and mine that ever I sawe. To 
 speak to you really the truth, and the true information of the whole 
 kingdome, upon my creditt I now doe it ; all the whole kingdome in 
 
64 
 
 a disastrous defeat, his force being nearly annihilated ; 
 and. McDonnell became at once a distinguished leader. 
 The day of the battle was known long after among the 
 Presbyterians in the Koute as Black Friday. The Eev. 
 Mr. Clogy, stepson-in-law of Bishop Bedell, speaking of 
 this battle, bestows on Alaster a pedigree much more 
 ancient than that claimed by " the gentlemen of his 
 haughty sirname," as Sir Walter Scott calls them. He 
 deduces Alaster from Anak, of whom and his gigantic 
 sons, the spies that Moses had sent before him to 
 Canaan, had reported that the Hebrews were, in com- 
 parison, " as grasshoppers." 
 
 generall are of our side, except Dublin, whoe hath 20,000 men about, 
 in leager of it, if it be not now taken ; Drogheda whoe hath 16,000 men 
 about it, and are these ten dayes past eatinge of horse-flesh ; Carricke- 
 fergus, Coulraine, and my lord of Claneboys, and my lo of the Ardes ; 
 this is the truth on my credit ; ballemeanagh, Antrim, and all the 
 garrisons between this and Carrickefergus are all fled to Carricke- 
 fergus ; soe that it is but a folly to resist what God pleeseth 
 to happen ; but certainly they will have all Ireland presently, 
 whatever time they keep it. You may truly inform my friends in 
 
 Coulraine that I would wish they , and if they yeild me the 
 
 towne it shall be good for them and me, for the booty shall be 
 myne, and they shall be sure of good quarters ; for I will send for all 
 the Eaghlin boates to Portrush and from thanes [thence] send all the 
 people away into Scotland, wch, if it be not done before Sir Phelim 
 
 is [his] army comes to the towne, who comes the next week 
 
 thousand men and piece of artillery, all my desire of doing them good 
 will be to no purpose ; therefore send me word what you doe therein ; 
 as for both your houses they shall be safe, and so should all the houses 
 in the country if they would be persuaded by me ; the Oldstowe [Old- 
 stone, now Clough] was rendered me, and all they within had good 
 quarters, only the Clandebayes souldours and the two regiments from 
 beyon the Ban were a little greedy for pillaginge, which could not be 
 helpt. As for killing of women none of my souldiers dare do it for his 
 life, but the common people that are not under rule doth it in spite of 
 
65 
 
 "The Scotts then/' says Mr. Clogy, "throughout all the 
 province of Ulster, where they were most numerous, be- 
 took themselves to holds, leaving all the open country to 
 the enemy; for the first attempt of Col Kiltach had so 
 frighted them, that they thought no man was able to stand 
 before that son of Anak. In his first encounter with a few 
 Irish Highlanders and some of Antrim's Irish rebels (that 
 were brethren in evil) against eight hundred English and 
 Scots, having commanded these murderers to lay down all 
 their fire-arms, he fell in amongst them with swords and 
 dirks, or sceanes, in such a furious irresistible manner that it 
 was reported that not a man of them escaped of all the eight 
 hundred, the first and greatest loss in battle that we sustained 
 in all that war, save one in Munster (under the unhappy 
 conduct of Sir Charles Vavasour) ; whereupon the rebels rode 
 in triumph, with their swords drawn, through the streets of 
 Kilkenny, as if they had conquered all England." 
 
 The mode of attack, which the man of peace shud- 
 
 our teeth ; but for your people the killed of women and children and 
 
 old people about 3 score. My Lo. and Lady are gone to Slain,* 
 
 to whom I have sent ; tell my bror Hill and Mrs. Barwicke that 
 
 their people are all in good health, but in my own company. — I 
 
 desire you not to stirr out of that till I be neere you myselfe, for fear 
 you should fall in the hands of the seaven hundred I have in the lower 
 part of the country, who would give you noe quarter at all ; but when 
 I have settled things here, you may come to me yourselfe and your 
 dearest friends to a few, and the rest to transport them with the rest 
 into Scotland ; as for goinge againe the King we will dye sooner or my 
 Lo : of Antrim either, but their only aime is to have their religion 
 settled and every one in his own ancient inheritance ; thus wishing you 
 to take my counsell which, I protest to God I will give you as really as 
 to myself, and haveing the hope of your beleavinge me herein, I rest 
 your very loveinge coussen still, James McDonnell. 
 
 " From the Catholick Campe at Oldstone, the 11th of Jan., 1641 " 
 [old style]. 
 
 *"Sir James McDonnell refers to the departure of Lord Antrim and 
 his wife, the Duchess of Buckingham, from the castle of Dunluce."— 
 The Eev. Mr. Hill's Stewarts of Ballintoy, pp. 13-15. Coleraine, 1865. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 ders at, was simply the usual tactic of the Highlanders 
 in battle at this time. Before the charge each clan 
 was formed into a wedge-shaped regiment, the front edge 
 of which was formed of the chief and gentry of the 
 clan, who were always the best armed, and usually the 
 largest and strongest men. Just before the charge they 
 fired into the enemy, threw down their guns, and 
 drawing the broadsword with the right hand and the 
 dirk with the left, rushed upon the foe. Each High- 
 lander carried a small round target on the left fore- 
 arm. It was his object on reaching his antagonist to 
 throw his bayonet up with this, and dashing in between 
 two men to give the broadsword to one and the dirk to 
 the other. This certainly very formidable mode of 
 attack had the effect, at the Laney, at Killikrankie, at 
 Preston-Pans, and on many another occasion, of scatter- 
 ing the enemy like chaff before the wind. Sir Walter 
 Scott gives a graphic account of it in his description 
 of the battle of Preston-Pans in Waverley, 
 
 Coleraine and Ballintoy were immediately besieged, 
 and in a few weeks reduced to the last extremity of 
 distress. Great numbers of fugitives had flocked into 
 Coleraine, and over-crowding and starvation produced 
 pestilential fever, by which great numbers of the in- 
 habitants perished. Temple has the hardihood to print 
 the following evidence of James Redferne : — 
 
 " The mortality there (in Coleraine) was such and so great, 
 that many thousands died there in two days ; and that the 
 
67 
 
 living, though scarce able to do it, laid the carcasses of those 
 in great ranks into vast and wide holes, laying them so close 
 and thick as if they had packed herrings together." 
 
 The truth was bad and sad enough without such 
 preposterous exaggeration as this. Sir James McDon- 
 nell mentions that Lord Antrim had retired with his 
 wife from Dunluce to Slane, near Drogheda, in the 
 beginning of the insurrection. He now returned, says 
 Carte, in his Life of Or mo nd, vol. i., p. 188, 
 
 " To his seat at Dunluce, a strong castle by the seaside ; and 
 after his arrival there, found means to supply Coleraine, 
 which had been blocked up by the Irish, and was reduced to 
 extremity, with one hundred beeves, sixty loads of corn, and 
 other provisions at his own expense." 
 
 The Eev. Mr. Hill states :— 
 
 " On this occasion Alaster MacColl, who was chief in com- 
 mand, consented so to relax the severity of the siege, that the 
 inhabitants not only got ample space for themselves and their 
 cattle, but were supplied with the best descriptions of food, 
 beef and oatmeal. Alaster MacColl, who had here the fate of 
 so many Presbyterians literally in his hands, thus dealt with 
 them very much more humanely than even the rules of 
 modern warfare would permit, and certainly very much more 
 so than the Presbyterians would have dealt with him, had the 
 circumstances been reversed."* 
 
 The same author relates, in his Stewarts of Ballin- 
 toy, p. 22, another touching instance of humanity on 
 the part of a truly Christian priest at the siege of Bal- 
 
 * The MacDonnells of Antrim, p. 72, note 88. 
 
68 
 
 Kntoy, which was being prosecuted at the same time 
 as that of Coleraine. 
 
 " During these operations," says Mr. Hill, " the adjoining 
 church was crowded with a trembling multitude of women 
 and children, who were every hour threatened with destruc- 
 tion, either by fire or famine. In their dire extremity a good 
 Roman Catholic priest, at great personal risk, interfered for 
 their preservation. With difficulty he obtained permission to 
 bring them water, and, in doing so, filled the water vessels 
 with oatmeal, covering it with a few inches depth of water 
 at the top. In this way he daily carried to the captives as 
 much food as kept them alive till relief came. Tradition 
 states that this truly good Samaritan was called MacGlaime, 
 but nothing is known of him save this one noble Christian 
 act." 
 
 From such Christian acts as these arise— 
 
 " That incense 
 Whose fragrance smells to Heaven." 
 
 Gladly would I quote any similar deeds of mercy on 
 the part of Parsons or other of the Puritan leaders in 
 Ireland of this time; but as far as I know there are 
 none such to record. 
 
 A few weeks later, Monroe, who had arrived in 
 Carrickfergus in April with 2,500 Scotch troops, and 
 had expelled the insurgents from Newry, marched to 
 Coleraine, burning Glenarni on his way, and making 
 Lord Antrim a prisoner at Dunluce. Carte says this 
 was effected in a treacherous manner after an enter- 
 tainment given him by Lord Antrim ; but other 
 authorities deny the treachery. Till lately I had lost 
 
69 
 
 sight of Alaster MacColl completely for near two years 
 after this — neither any historical account nor family tra- 
 dition giving me any information about him between 
 the time when he retreated into the County of Deny, 
 before Monroe's overwhelming force, and the time of 
 his appointment as Major-General of about 2,000 men, 
 despatched by Lord Antrim in the middle of 1644, in 
 aid of Montrose in the Highlands of Scotland. From 
 Sir John Clotworthy's officer, already quoted, I have 
 learned that Alaster quickly united his force with Sir 
 Phelim O'NenTs, who, thus reinforced, marched to the 
 Lagan, a district in the north of the County of Done- 
 gall, between the rivers Foyle and Swilly, to attack a 
 body of Protestants under Sir Eobert and Sir William 
 Stewart. O'Neill received a severe defeat. 
 
 " The next Boute the Irish and British/' says this author, 
 " had in Ulster was at a place called Glommaquin,* in the 
 County of Dungall, whither Sir Phelim O'Neil and O'Cahan, 
 their chief commanders, marched with about 4,000 men. 
 Which the British hearing, under the command of Sir Bobert 
 Stewart, an old soldier, entrenched themselves in the night, 
 but had not time to make it full breast high before morning, 
 when the Irish appeared close to them, and sent a brigade 
 under the command of Alexander MacColla MacDonnell, a 
 stout brave fellow (under the command of Mount Bose after- 
 wards in Scotland), who charged up alone to the work but 
 was shot, and after a very sharp skirmish the Irish fell back, 
 
 * Glenniaquin, in the parish of Baphoe, near Lifford, capital of the 
 County of Donegall. The battle was fought 16th June, 1642. Hill— 
 MacDonnells of Antnm, p. 75. 
 
70 
 
 and took the retreat, where many were slain, and with much 
 ado O'Cahan brought off MacDonnell in a horse-litter." 
 
 His wound was very severe and he had a tedious 
 recovery, during which he was nursed by a priest 
 named O'Crilly. 
 
 III. 
 
 In every history of this war which I have met with, 
 scant justice is done to Lord Antrim, in respect to the 
 services he rendered in support of the Royalist cause. 
 He is heft up to contempt as a braggart who made 
 magnificent promises in 1644 to raise 10,000 men in 
 aid of Montrose in Scotland, and ended by sending 
 twelve or fifteen hundred men to join his standard in 
 the Highlands. I assert with confidence that Antrim's 
 services to Charles were far more important than those 
 of any other Irish nobleman, with, perhaps, the excep- 
 tion of Ormond. I say perhaps, for I think Oraiond's 
 surrender of Dublin to the Long Parliament has left 
 an indelible stain upon his character as a staunch and 
 faithful cavalier. Already, in 1641, Lord Antrim had 
 raised a regiment of 800 men, certainly intended by 
 him for the support of Charles; but, by some unex- 
 plained cause, 600 of these men were Presbyterians, 
 and therefore ParliamentariaDs, at the head of whom, 
 reinforced by 200 volunteers of Coleraine, Archibald 
 Stewart, Lord Antrim's agent, whom he had employed 
 
71 
 
 to raise the regiment, marched out to attack Alaster 
 McDonnell, with the result mentioned above. 
 
 I do not doubt that Lord Antrim, in offering to raise 
 10,000 men, much over-rated his power in 1644. His 
 influence in his County of Antrim estate, running from 
 Larne to the north coast and from the Bann to the 
 North Channel, was seriously crippled by the presence 
 of 10,000 Scottish soldiers, under Monroe, at Carrick- 
 fergus ; and by the Plantation Protestants, under Sir 
 Kobert and Sir William Stewart, in the Counties of 
 Derry and Tyrone. A few years before this, the chief of 
 his family, known in the Highlands as the Clandonald 
 South, or the Clan Ian Vohr, which had been for more 
 than a century by much the most powerful family in 
 the Clan MacDonald, had been driven out of Scotland 
 by James and the Campbells; and here, therefore, the 
 influence of Antrim to raise men was impaired by time 
 and absence. Nevertheless, we shall see that he per- 
 formed much more in recruiting Montrose's force than 
 his depredators gave him credit for. In Antrim he 
 raised 2,500 men. In June, 1644, he writes to 
 Ormond — 
 
 " That he had sent off about 1,600 men, being as many as 
 the ships could conveniently hold, completely armed by his 
 own shifts, besides 1,500 pikes, and that he had discharged 
 700 or 800 men for want of shipping."* And Ormond 
 himself writes on the 17th of the next month : " The number 
 
 * Carte's Ormond. 
 
72 
 
 of men embarked by him (Lord Antrim) from Waterford and 
 other places amounted to 2,500, well armed and victualled for 
 two months * It cannot be denied," says Lord Clarendon, 
 who was no friend of Lord Antrim, "that the levies the 
 Marquis of Antrim made and sent over to Scotland, under 
 the command of Colkitto, were the foundation of all those 
 wonderful acts which were performed afterwards by the Mar- 
 quis of Montrose. And the Marquis of Montrose did always 
 acknowledge that the rise and beginning of his good success 
 was due and to be imputed to that body of the Irish which 
 had in the beginning been sent him by the Marquis of 
 Antrim ; to whom the King had acknowledged the service in 
 several letters of his own handwriting." 
 
 In fact, these half-disciplined but heroic County of 
 Antrim peasants formed the backbone of Montrose's 
 force up to the time of the battle of Kilsyth ; and in 
 bravery and endurance of hardship and fatigue in a 
 winter's campaign through the snowy Grampians and 
 mountains of Badenoch, Lochaber, and Cantyre, they 
 exhibited a heroism worthy of the hero that led them, 
 speaking of whom, Cardinal de Retz says : — 
 
 " Montrose, a Scottish nobleman, head of the house of 
 Graham, the only man in the world that has ever realised to 
 me the idea of certain heroes whom we now discover nowhere 
 but in the lives of Plutarch." 
 
 Montrose led these men from victory to victor}-, 
 from August, 1 644, to August, 1645, when the victory 
 of Kilsyth made him master of the open country 
 of Scotland, " from Maidenkirk to John O'Groat s," till 
 
 ♦Carte, vol. iii., p. 328. 
 
73 
 
 the disaster of Philiphaugii. That the exploits of these 
 noble fellows (who perished to a man in battles, or by 
 two massacres, the " thwart disnatured " offspring of 
 Scottish clerical bigotry, which is the purest, the most 
 inhuman, and the most detestable the world has ever 
 seen), are so completely ignored by the Irish historians 
 of this period, is, in my opinion, highly discreditable 
 to them. I propose to redress this wrong, by record- 
 ing the prowess of these men, the narrative of which 
 strictly belongs to the history of the Irish War of 
 1641-'52. 
 
 On two several occasions Montrose despatched 
 Alaster McDonnell to the western Highlands and 
 Isles to raise recruits among the MacDonalds and their 
 ancient and faithful allied Clans, and he returned 
 bringing along with him seven or eight thousand as 
 fine born-soldiers as ever drew broadsword. It is but 
 fair to attribute a good share of this success to the 
 influence of the names of Antrim and his kinsman 
 Alaster amongst their clansmen. 
 
 The Irish auxiliaries landed at Ardnamurchan, in 
 Argyleshire, on the 5th of July, 1644. In crossing 
 the Irish Sea and North Channel they encountered 
 and captured two ships of the Covenant under Colonel 
 Munro, carrying supplies to the Scottish troops in 
 Ulster. Alaster's treatment of his prisoners gives 
 another practical refutation of the character for inhu- 
 manity bestowed upon him by Eeid and Froude. He 
 
74 
 
 released them all except three preachers, whom he 
 retained in the hope of exchanging them for his father, 
 Colkitto, and his two brothers, at this time imprisoned 
 by Argyle. Soon after landing, Alaster took the castles 
 of Mingarry and Kinlochaline, marched coastwise as 
 far as Kintail, and then, having failed completely to 
 kindle the smouldering loyalty of the clans he visited 
 (he was still young and little known among them, 
 and certainly the Kev. Mr. Clogy's terrific account of 
 the battle of the Laney had not yet reached them) he 
 returned in a south-westerly direction, crossing Loch- 
 aber and Badenoch, in the hope of hearing of or 
 meeting Montrose. In the meantime Montrose had 
 reached the Highlands on the verge of the Grampians, 
 having at great risk crossed the Lowlands in the 
 disguise of a groom riding a sorry nag and leading a 
 spare horse behind Sir William Eollock and Colonel 
 Sibbald accoutred as covenanting troopers. Amongst 
 other dangers they encountered, — 
 
 " They were suddenly accosted by a Scotchman who had 
 served under the Earl of Newcastle, and who was well 
 acquainted with the person of Montrose. Against the scru- 
 tiny of the old campaigner no masquerade was availing. The 
 Marquis's 'quick and piercing eye' and ' singular grace in 
 riding' were not to be disguised ; and the soldier, passing the 
 pretended officers, at once addressed himself to their servant, 
 and respectfully saluted him by his title. In vain did the 
 latter endeavour to evade the compliment and sustain his 
 part. 'What,' exclaimed the other, still preserving the utmost 
 respect in his countenance and manner, ' Do I not know my 
 
75 
 
 Lord Marquis of Montrose ? Go your way, and God be with 
 you wheresoever you go.' He never betrayed the secret, 
 though he might have made his fortune by the discovery.''* 
 
 After Montrose had reached the Highlands, Alaster 
 Mac Coll wrote to him informing him of the arrival of 
 the Irish force. The letter was addressed to him at 
 Carlisle ; but it fortunately came into the hands of 
 Patrick Graham, Montrose's cousin, with whom he was 
 in hiding. His answer to McDonnell's despatch in- 
 structed him to march immediately into Athol, where 
 Montrose promised to meet him. The letter was dated 
 from Carlisle, to mislead the Covenanters if it should 
 fall into their hands. About the end of August, 
 Alaster entered Athol, took the castle of Blair Athol, 
 and there awaited Montrose, who soon made his appear- 
 ance on foot, accompanied only by Patrick Graham. 
 Although here in the midst of Stewarts, Grahams, 
 Murrays, Ogilvies, and Eobertsons, all royalists, the 
 Highlanders who joined him after he had proclaimed 
 his commission from Charles, unfurled the royal ban- 
 ner, and begun his march on Perth, did not nearly 
 equal in number the Antrim regiments. Nevertheless, 
 Montrose did not hesitate to advance through the pass 
 of Killicrankie into the Lowlands, to encounter a 
 much more numerous covenanting force collected at 
 St. Johnstown (now Perth). 
 
 * Napier, p. 260. 
 
76 
 
 " On the morning of August 31st, 1644, his whole forces, 
 about 2,500, were across the Tay."* 
 
 Soon after marching, he was informed that a body 
 of about 400 men were drawn up on a hill on his line 
 of march, apparently to oppose his advance. They 
 proved to be a force, commanded by Lord Kilpont, 
 raised suddenly for the purpose of expelling the 
 " Irishes but on learning that Montrose was acting 
 under the Eoyal Commission they at once joined him. 
 On reaching the plain of Tippermuir the Highlanders 
 descried the Covenanters drawn up in battle array on 
 the moor, about three miles from St. Johnstown, under 
 command of Lords Elcho and Tullibardine and Sir 
 James Scott, a brave and experienced officer. They 
 had 400 horse on each wing and nine pieces of cannon. 
 Montrose had three horses, but fought himself on foot, 
 no cannon, and his little army was out-numbered by 
 at least three to one. 
 
 " The Marquis addressed his troops in these words : ' Be 
 sparing of your powder ; we have none to throw away. Let 
 not a musket be fired, except in the very face of the enemy. 
 Give but a single discharge, and then at them with the 
 claymore, in the name of God and the King.'"-)- 
 
 The right wing and centre were at once driven into 
 headlong flight by Lord Kilpont and Alaster MacColl 
 The left wing, under Sir James Scott, fought bravely 
 for some time, but was driven off the field by Mont- 
 
 * Napier, p. 269. 
 
 t lb. p. 271. 
 
77 
 
 rose and his Athol men of the ris;ht \rin°; armed with 
 the Lochaber axe. The slaughter of the pursy bur- 
 gesses of Perth by the light-footed mountaineers in a 
 flight of two or three miles was terrible, and the town 
 was surrendered on the following day. 
 
 " Before their leader could fight another battle, a great pro- 
 portion of the Athol men took at least temporary leave of 
 him, in pursuance of their hereditary habits, and without an 
 idea that by so doing they infringed a single rule of the 
 military profession or lost a point in the warlike game they 
 had so happily commenced."* 
 
 This was considered and called, very unjustly, de- 
 sertion, by those who were ignorant of the conditions 
 of service on the part of the Highlander and the 
 regular soldier of a standing army. The privilege was 
 perfectly understood by Montrose, who never thought 
 of denying or punishing the exercise of it, however 
 grieved he often was to be deprived by it of the fruits 
 of his brilliant exploits. 
 
 " The clans," says Sir "Walter Scott, " could be in no respect 
 induced to consider themselves as regular soldiers, or to act as 
 such. Even so late as the year 1745-6, when the Chevalier 
 Charles Edward, by way of making an example, caused a 
 soldier to be shot for desertion, the Highlanders who com- 
 posed his army were affected as much by indignation as by 
 fear. They could not conceive any principle of justice upon 
 which a man's life could be taken for merely going home 
 when it did not suit him to remain longer with the army. 
 Such had been the uniform practice of then fathers. When 
 
 Napier, p. 273. 
 
78 
 
 a battle was over, the campaign was in their opinion ended ; 
 if it was lost, they sought safety in their mountains ; if won, 
 they returned there to secure their booty. At other times 
 they had their cattle to look after, and their harvests to sow 
 or reap, without which their families would have perished for 
 want."* 
 
 If Montrose could have been induced to propose to 
 his Highlanders to serve under him on the conditions 
 imposed on the common soldier, they would have 
 replied with one voice : " My Lord Marquis, we are 
 volunteers. The plunder we may acquire after a battle, 
 or by a raid into the enemy's country, is our only pay. 
 We must have liberty at all times to secure this in 
 our mountain homes. We must be free to sow in 
 spring and reap in harvest, to save our wives and 
 children from starvation ; and we must have the 
 opportunity to restore the roof-tree and roof of our 
 cottages, very likely to have been burned in the raid 
 of some Covenanting clan, to preserve our families 
 from death by cold within the bare walls, under the 
 benumbing winters blast from the mountains. In 
 short, my lord, we must enjoy, in these and other 
 respects, the freedom we inherit by the prescription of 
 centuries from our forefathers ; and we alone must be 
 the judges of the sufficiency of the reasons which 
 induce us to leave the camp. On these conditions our 
 swords and lives are at your service. On yours, we 
 cannot and we will not serve under your banner." 
 
 * Legend of Montrose, pp. 226-7. Edinburgh : 1830. 
 
79 
 
 This was a fatal blow to the character of the volun- 
 teer Highlanders as soldiers, which rendered it impos- 
 sible for them to form an army capable of carrying out 
 any well-devised plan of military operations. It is a 
 remarkable but little noticed fact that the same flaw 
 existed in the Eoman armies for more than three 
 hundred years after the foundation of Kome, and was 
 certainly the main cause of the slow progress made 
 during that time in subduing the petty neighbouring 
 states with which the Komans were continually at 
 war. The siege of Veii was the first considerable 
 military operation conducted with regularly paid 
 soldiers. 
 
 In the following century the sagacity of a true states- 
 man, Chatham, quickly perceived in what way he could 
 avail himself of the fine military material the High- 
 lands offered. By regular enlistment, by bounty and 
 pay, he converted the volunteer into the regular 
 soldier, flattering at the same time his national vanity 
 by permitting him to retain his Highland costume. 
 At once, the Black Watch (the Forty-twa) and other 
 early formed Highland regiments, recruited entirely 
 in the Highlands, became not less distinguished by 
 bravery in battle, than by orderly, peaceable, and 
 kindly conduct in the camp or city. Yet were these 
 recruits, probably the wildest and most adventurous 
 spirits of their clans, the same men who would other- 
 wise have soon been designated in the Lowlands and 
 
80 
 
 England as catherans, reivers, robbers, and thieves. 
 They very seldom plundered any whom they did not 
 regard as enemies. The following statement by the 
 late Dr. Cheyne, Physician-General in Ireland, in an 
 essay on feigned diseases among soldiers, is curiously 
 corroborative of the high character I have given of 
 these men : — 
 
 " In some of the cavalry regiments, in some of the High- 
 land and other distinguished infantry battalions, in which, 
 along with a mild but exact discipline, there is a strong 
 attachment to the service and a remarkable esprit de corps, 
 there is scarcely an instance of any of these disgraceful 
 attempts to deceive the surgeon. . . . Among those who 
 counterfeit disease, the Irish are the most numerous and 
 expert; the lowland Scotsman comes next to the Irish, and 
 what he wants in address is supplied by obstinacy. Malin- 
 o-erin^ seems to me least of all the vice of the English 
 soldier."* 
 
 The following anecdote is a contribution which I 
 think worthy of record, in addition to the numerous 
 acts of bravery recorded by Colonel Stuart, of Garth, 
 in his history of the Highland regiments. A relative 
 of mine was conversing with Sir Duncan McGregor, 
 some ten or fifteen years ago, respecting his military 
 experiences in the field. Few men had gone through 
 as much active service as Sir Duncan. My friend 
 inquired of him how often he had seen the bayonets 
 cross in battle : — 
 
 * Dublin Hospital Reports, vol. iv., p. 172. 
 
81 
 
 " Once/' said Sir Duncan, " and once only. England had 
 taken possession of Sicily in 1812, and a force was ordered 
 to cross over into Italy to encounter the French, who at that 
 time were in occupation of the country. We came in con- 
 tact with the revolutionary French troops for the first time at 
 the battle of Maida. James Macdonnel, younger brother of 
 the Chief of Glengarry, afterwards so distinguished by his 
 defence of Hougomont at the battle of Waterloo, and I were 
 young officers in a Highland regiment, which was ordered to 
 charge. At once, as if by a kind of instinct, every High- 
 lander threw off his shoes, and then — the rush ! The bayonets 
 crossed ; but, on the instant^ the French turned and fled." 
 
 A large Newfoundland dog of Sir James's, for which 
 as a child I had a tender regard, was to my grief 
 killed in that battle. 
 
 We left Montrose in possession of Perth, where he 
 remained three days, during which, and a few days 
 later, his little force had been seriously diminished by 
 the withdrawal of the Athol Highlanders and the 
 followers of Lord Kilpont and Stewart of Ardvoir- 
 lich. Kilpont had been assassinated, under circum- 
 stances of great atrocity, by Stewart, the gloomy and 
 half-lunatic Allan McAulay of Scott's Legend of 
 Montrose. The assassin fled to Argyle, who received 
 him with open arms, and advanced him soon after to 
 a majority in his " pious and Godly regiment." As 
 Argyle, with a greatly superior force, was hovering 
 over Montrose's rear, he determined to leave the 
 Dictator, as he called Argyle, behind, by a rapid march 
 on Aberdeen. On his march he received some small 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 reinforcements, the most valuable of which consisted of 
 thirty cuirassiers, all gentlemen, under the command of 
 Colonel Nathaniel Gordon, who had served in the wars 
 on the Continent. Finding the bridge of Dee for- 
 tified and defended, he marched up the river to a ford, 
 and crossing, proceeded, on the 12th of September, 
 along the left bank of the river to within two miles 
 of Aberdeen, and next day despatched a summons to 
 surrender the city to the King s forces. The battle of 
 Aberdeen was fought on this day. 
 
 " It was with a diminished force of about 2,000 followers, 
 of whom a small proportion were cavalry, and some field- 
 pieces taken at Tippermuir, that he again found himself 
 in front of an enemy, not many days after he had destroyed 
 the armament of Elcho."* 
 
 The Aberdeen Covenanters marched out to meet the 
 Cavaliers. They were under the command of Lord 
 Burleigh, and were not much more numerous than 
 their opponents — about 2,500 foot, 300 horse (in which 
 they had a great superiority — the Royalists having 
 about 50 horse), and some artillery. This battle was 
 much better contested by the Covenanters than that 
 of Tippermuir, being maintained for two or three 
 hours ; but their defeat was complete. Montrose's 
 force was formed in great part of the Irish auxiliaries, 
 probably two-thirds. The following extract from the 
 diary of Sir Thomas Hope, the Lord Advocate, shows 
 
 * Napier, p. 275. 
 
83 
 
 that the statements I have made on this point were 
 accepted in Scotland : — 
 
 " Conflict at Perth. On 1st September, 1644, being Sun- 
 day, was the conflict at Perth, where our people were 
 mechantlie defeated by the Irish. Item; on 13th September, 
 Aberdeen was taken by the Irish and our force defeated." 
 
 Montrose occupied Aberdeen for but one day, 
 having received intelligence that Argyle was close 
 upon him, with an overwhelming force, including 
 1,000 or 1,500 horse under the Earl of Lothian. And 
 now, during the next two or three months, he con- 
 ducted a series of masterly retreats, forced marches 
 through the mountains, or sudden and unexpected 
 descents upon the country of the Covenanters. He 
 first directed his course towards the district of the 
 eminently loyal clan Gordon, in hopes of receiving large 
 reinforcements from them ; but the strange and dis- 
 graceful conduct of their chief, the Marquis of Huntly, 
 and one of his sons, probably caused by jealousy 
 of Montrose, altogether disappointed these sanguine 
 hopes. He rid himself of his heavy baggage, buried 
 his cannon in a morass, and retreated through the 
 mountains into Strathspey, with the intention of 
 crossing the Spey, and disappearing among the fast- 
 nesses of Badenoch. On arriving at the river, how- 
 ever, he found the opposite bank occupied by 5,000 
 Covenanters, and all the boats carried to that side. 
 He was thus forced to retreat before Argyle up the 
 
84 
 
 Spey, and by a long and difficult detour to reach 
 Badenoch, where he well knew MacCaillin More 
 (Argyle) would not venture to follow him. Here he 
 was struck down by a very serious illness, in which 
 his life was for some days in jeopardy. Indeed, his 
 death was reported among the Covenanters ; and with 
 their usual blasphemous presumptuousness, with which 
 they declared their intimate knowledge of the inten- 
 tions and counsels of the Almighty, some of the 
 zealots among their clergy announced to their flocks 
 that "the great God of Armies himself had slain 
 Montrose with his avenging hand." Notwithstanding, 
 he soon after presented himself again at Blair Athol. 
 From thence, early in October, he despatched Alaster 
 MacColl, with 500 of his Irishmen, on his first re- 
 cruiting mission to the Western Highlands and Isles ; 
 and he, crossing the Grampians again with his dimin- 
 ished force, made a rapid march, plundering the Cove- 
 nanting districts on his way, to the neighbourhood of 
 Aberdeen. He surprised by a night march the strong 
 castle of Fyvie, belonging to the Earl of Dunfermline, 
 at this time serving in the Covenanting Scottish army 
 before Newcastle. Here he found himself unexpect- 
 edly within two miles of Argyle, with a greatly 
 superior force (2,500 infantry and more than 1,000 
 horse under the Earl of Lothian). Montrose had 
 skilfully chosen a strong position above the castle, 
 fortified naturally by hedges and ditches, and an 
 
85 
 
 abattis of trees, felled for this purpose. For three 
 days he was attacked by Argyle, who was uniformly 
 repulsed, with considerable loss, but with little on the 
 part of the besieged. Here again the great majority 
 of Montrose's force consisted, notwithstanding the 
 absence of Alaster and 500 of his men, of the Irish. 
 The light-heartedness and fun of these men afforded 
 much amusement to their graver Scottish fellow- 
 soldiers. The defection of a company of Gordons, 
 who, finding that Lord Lewis Gordon, son of their 
 chief, was fighting in Argyle's army, positively refused 
 to act against Lord Lewis, and marched away, leaving 
 vacant the defences they had occupied, which were 
 immediately taken possession of by the enemy, was 
 attended with great danger. Montrose, alarmed, but 
 assuming an air of unconcern, addressed Colonel 
 O'Cahan, a brave officer of the Irish : — 
 
 " Come, O'Cahan, what are you about ? Take some of your 
 hardiest men, drive those fellows from our defences, and 
 see that we are not molested by them again. The young 
 Hibernian replied by a rush at the assailants, for which they 
 afterwards sought revenge by bringing him to the scaffold. 
 In the meantime, however, he did precisely as he was 
 directed, and drove them, horse and foot, in confusion down 
 the hill, and his gallant company, having brought off in 
 triumph the enemy's bags of powder, which they found in 
 the ditches, exclaimed, with all the humour characteristic of 
 their nation, " We must at them again, for the rogues have 
 forgot to leave the bullets with the powder.' " * 
 
 * Napier, p. 284. 
 
86 
 
 Being ill supplied with ammunition, especially ball, 
 the Eoyalists, in the intervals of the assaults of the 
 enemy, collected from all the neighbourhood every 
 pewter vessel, dish, flagon, and utensil of still baser 
 use, for the purpose of melting them down, and 
 converting them into bullets. A sharpshooter among 
 the Irish, who considered that he never missed his 
 aim, after every discharge exclaimed, "There goes 
 another traitor's face smashed with a pot."* 
 
 Montrose now resolved to take refuge once more in 
 Badenoch, and effected his retreat with little loss, 
 except of some Lowland gentlemen, who thought 
 themselves unequal to bear the severity of the moun- 
 tain winter. The stout old Earl of Airly and his 
 sons, Sir Thomas and Sir David Ogilvy, refused to 
 desert him. 
 
 Soon after his arrival in Badenoch, having learned 
 that Argyle had sent his horse into winter quarters, 
 and that he himself with some of his infantry were 
 at Dunkeld, tampering with the Athol Highlanders, he 
 resolved to attack Argyle there. 
 
 " In one night he brought his whole army four-and- 
 twenty miles across the mountains, in the end of November, 
 struggling through rocks and drifted snow, amidst wilds 
 untenanted save by the eagles and deer." f 
 
 He was within sixteen miles of his opponent before 
 he was aware of Montrose's approach. The Dictator 
 
 * Napier, p. 28o. t lb., p. 288. 
 
87 
 
 fled immediately, and left his troops to shift for them- 
 selves. And now — 
 
 " At the Castle of Blair, in Athol, their original rendezvous, 
 he was joined by his Major-General, ALaster McDonnell, who, 
 to Montrose's great delight, brought along with him John of 
 Moidart, Captain of the Clanranald [Macdonalds], with 500 
 of his sept. Alaster had been most successful in his recruit- 
 ing expedition. He and the gallant Captain just named had 
 marched together to the braes of Lochaber, where MacDon- 
 nel of Keppock [or of the Clanranald of Lochaber], the loyal 
 chief of that country, joined them with his men [probably 
 300 or 400], To these were added the Stewarts of Appin, the 
 men of Knoidart and Glengarry [probably contributing among 
 them at least 1,000 men], the Clan Ian of Glenco [this small 
 sept of Macdonalds probably sending 50 or 60 men], the Laird 
 of Glenevis, the Camerons from the western side of the 
 Lochy, and the Farquharsons from Braemar"* [between them 
 contributing at least 1,000 men]. 
 
 Soon after, Montrose, on his march towards Inve- 
 rary, was joined by a body of Macgregors and 
 Macnabs.t And now for the first time the High- 
 landers, probably about 5,000 men, far outnumbered 
 the Irish auxiliaries. Montrose was desirous to make 
 a descent on the Lowlands, and to winter there ; but 
 the Highland chiefs prevailed upon him, in a council 
 
 * Napier, p. 289. 
 
 f I had written so far before the publication of Mr. Lecky's History 
 of England in the Eighteenth Century, and have read with extreme 
 pleasure his sketch of the sad period of my narrative. His deep 
 research, well-considered opinions, and judicial impartiality respecting 
 the Insurrection of 1641, afford me the highest gratification on fiuding 
 so close an accordance between his conclusions and my own. 
 
88 
 
 of war, to make a foray upon the Campbells, and 
 surprise Argyle in his stronghold at Inverary. He 
 accordingly immediately commenced, in mid-winter, 
 a march of 120 or 150 miles from Blair Athol to 
 Cantyre, over mountains covered with snow, and 
 through gorges where, as he himself says, in a letter 
 to Charles — 
 
 " I could have no guides but cow-herds, and they scarce 
 acquainted with a place but six miles from their habitations. 
 If I had been attacked with but 100 men in some of these 
 passes, I must have certainly returned back, for it would have 
 been impossible to force my way — most of the passes being so 
 streight that three men could not march abreast/' 
 
 At Lough Tay, the force divided into two bodies — 
 one marching across the base of Ben Lawers, the other 
 along the south-western bank of the lake ; and then, 
 as they swept through Breadalbane and Glenorchy, 
 the country of the Campbells, they separated into 
 three bands, one under Montrose, the second under 
 Alaster McDonnell, and the third under John of 
 Moidart ; and each of these, breaking up into smaller 
 bodies, spread over the country in their line of march, 
 burning houses, driving off cattle, and shooting down 
 men, wherever a dozen or score of Campbells gathered 
 together to offer resistance. It is said, probably with 
 much exaggeration, that 895 men of the Campbells 
 were slain, and that John of Moidart and the Clan- 
 ranald, with some of the men of Keppoch, on one 
 occasion returned to the camp with 1,000 head of 
 
89 
 
 cattle. Argyle had no intimation of his danger till 
 Montrose, leaving Lome on his right hand, was 
 marching rapidly along Loch Awe, within a few 
 miles of Inverary. With what startled and incre- 
 dulous eye and ear must the nymphs of the Awe 
 and its Loch have seen and heard the Highland and 
 Irish bands sweeping past, and the shrill pibrochs of 
 the various clans echoing through the woods, having 
 so often heard repeated the proverbial and till now 
 truthful boast of the Campbells, proclaiming the inac- 
 cessibility of the stronghold of their chief, "It is a 
 far cry to Loch Awe." Argyle had barely time, 
 before Montrose was upon him, to fly from Inverary 
 Castle, and throw himself into a fishing-boat on Loch 
 Fine in terror, till he had lodged himself safely in 
 the strong castle of Dumbarton. 
 
 After having burnt the town of Inverary, and 
 ravaged Knapdale and Cantyre, Montrose turned his 
 face northwards — " wasting Lorn even as Argyle had 
 wasted Athol and the braes of Angus, and burnt 
 ' the bonny house of Airly ' "* — concluding the most 
 terrible foray ever inflicted on the brave and powerful 
 sons of Diarmid — the Clan Campbell. 
 
 Towards the middle of January, 1645, Montrose 
 quitted Argyle's territory, and crossing the Glenmore 
 (the great glen which runs north-east from Fort 
 William to Inverness, in which lies the Caledonian 
 
 * Napier, p. 291. 
 
90 
 
 Canal), halted, for the purpose of refreshing the 
 remnant of his force, near Glen Urquhart, on the 
 north-west shore of Lough Ness, at its southern ex- 
 tremity. His troops were now reduced to less than 
 2,000 men,* nearly all his Highlanders having, as 
 usual, gone home to secure their plunder and to pre- 
 pare their little patches of arable land for the next 
 harvest. 
 
 In the meantime, Argyle had concerted a plan 
 for the destruction of Montrose. Argyle was to 
 march upon him from the south with a body of his 
 clansmen and some Lowland battalions, 3,000 strong ; 
 General Baillie, with a much greater force, was to 
 attack him from the south-east ; and Mackenzie, Earl 
 of Seaforth, was to join them from Inverness with 
 5,000 men, falling upon him from the north-east; and 
 thus, by the concentration of this overwhelming force, 
 Montrose was to be annihilated. 
 
 In the last days of January, 1645, Argyle had just 
 harried the Macdonnels of Keppoch, who certainly 
 had earned small favour at his hands, and was now 
 stationed at Inverlochy Castle, near the present Fort 
 William. At this point of time, the bard of Mac- 
 donnel of Keppoch (Ian Lorn — " Beardless John") pre- 
 sented himself at Montrose's camp to communicate 
 this information. 
 
 * Napier, p. 293. 
 
91 
 
 " He could scarcely give credit to this report. ' Argyle,' he 
 exclaimed, 'dare not pursue me through Lochaber/ After a 
 council of war, however, and finding his followers, especially 
 his principal officer, Alaster MacDonnell, eager for the expedi- 
 tion, he determined to ' try back ' through the mountains to 
 the braes of Keppock and the country of Locheil."* 
 
 He resolved not to follow the direct course to Inver- 
 lochy, but taking a circuitous route over the Corryarick 
 mountains, the braes of Keppock, and the country of 
 the Camerons of Locheil, to pass through the domains 
 of the Macdonells of Glengarry and Keppock, and of 
 the Camerons, from whom he was sure of receiving 
 numerous recruits ; and hoped thus to come upon 
 Argyle by surprise. He took with him the bard Ian 
 Lorn bound, and with the assurance that if his 
 intelligence proved false he should be instantly shot. 
 He lived, however, to witness from an elevated spot 
 at the base of Ben Nevis, and to celebrate in Gaelic 
 verse (as is said of no mean merit and poetic fire), the 
 prowess of his clansmen in the battle of February the 
 second. The abridged translation which I give below 
 enables us to form some idea of the original : — 
 
 "Heard ye not! heard ye not! how that whirlwind the Gael 
 Through Lochaber swept down from Loch Ness to Loch Eil, 
 And the Campbells, to meet them in battle-array, 
 Like the billows came on, and were broke like their spray ! 
 Long, long shall our war song exult in that day. 
 
 * Napier, p. 293. 
 
92 
 
 "Twas the Sabbath that rose, 'twas the Feast of St. Bride, 
 When the rush of the clans shook Ben Nevis's side ; 
 I, the bard of their battles, ascended the height 
 Where dark Inverlochy o'ershadowed the fight, 
 And I saw the Clan-Donnell resistless in might. 
 
 "Through the land of my fathers the Campbells have come, 
 The flames of their foray enveloped my home, 
 Broad Keppock in ruin is left to deplore, 
 And my country is waste from the hill to the shore, — 
 Be it so! by St. Mary, there's comfort in store. 
 
 "Though the braes of Lochaber a desert were made, 
 And Glen Eoy should be lost to the plough and the spade, 
 Though the bones of my kindred, unhonor'd, unurn'd, 
 Marked the desolate path where the Campbells have burn'd, 
 Be it so ! from that foray they never return'd. 
 
 "Fallen race of Diarmid! disloyal — untrue, 
 No harp in the Highlands will sorrow for you ; 
 But the birds of Loch Eil are wheeling on high, 
 And the Badenock wolves hear the Cameron's cry, — 
 'Come, feast ye! come feast where the false-hearted lie!' " 
 
 A considerable part of Montrose's march lay in the 
 line of the famous road constructed long after by 
 General Wade, and celebrated in lofty verse by a poet, 
 whom the " Scotch Keviewers," and I dare say 
 " English Bards" too, with one voice pronounce to be 
 an Hibernian, though perhaps on no better ground 
 than Goldsmith's Glasgow Newspaper editor decided 
 the nationality of Saunders MacGregor : — 
 
 "We are happy," says the editor, "to inform our readers 
 
93 
 
 that Saunders MacGregor, who was hanged on Saturday last 
 for horse-stealing, was not a Scotsman, but born at Carrick- 
 fergus, in Ireland." 
 
 "If you had seen," sings the poet, "this road before it was 
 made, 
 
 You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade." 
 
 Let these carping critics recollect that there was no 
 lack in those days of second-sight Highlanders who 
 might have seen this road hundreds of years before it 
 was made, and that it was in this sense our Hibernian 
 intended his distich to be understood. But I fear 
 this badinage is beneath the dignity of history. 
 
 Montrose's little army was under the necessity of 
 dispensing with road of any kind in a most fatiguing 
 march of two days, by which they reached the skirts 
 of Ben Nevis early on the night of February 1st, 1645. 
 
 " Startling the herds of deer where armed men had never 
 yet been led, they sought their way up the rugged bed of the 
 Tarf, across the steep ridges of the awful Corryarick; now 
 plunging into the valley of the rising Spey, now crossing the 
 wild mountains from Glen Eoy to the Spean, and staid not, 
 until from the skirts of Ben Nevis they saw before them, 
 under a clear frosty sky, the yet bloodless shore of Loch Eil, 
 and the frowning towers of Inverlochy."* 
 
 Argyle soon received the alarming intelligence 
 that Montrose was near, and posted between him and 
 his own territory ; and immediately, to the grief and 
 
 * Napier, p. 295. 
 
94 
 
 shame and the silent indignation of his brave clans- 
 men, betook himself to his galley out of musket-shot 
 of the shore, leaving his troops under command of 
 Sir Duncan Campbell, whom he had summoned from 
 Carrickfergus, where he had been serving under the 
 Earl of Leven and Monroe. 
 
 Early on the morning of Sunday, the 2nd of 
 February, Montrose moved down to the attack. The 
 opposing forces were nearly equal in numbers — about 
 3,000 each, and consisted in good measure of High- 
 landers. 
 
 "On the right of the royal battle was Alaster McDonnell 
 and one regiment of the Irish; on the left, Colonel O'Cahan 
 and another regiment of the same; Colonel James McDonnell 
 being placed in reserve with the third. In the centre was the 
 standard and Montrose, accompanied by a few horse, and 
 supported by the Highlanders of Athol under the tutor of 
 Strowan, the Stewarts of Appin, the men of Glenco, the 
 captain of Clanranald, Keppock, Locheil, Glengarry, and 
 Maclean. Opposed to the Royalists were the Lowland forces 
 of Argyle placed on either wing ; but his main battle and the 
 reserve were both composed of his 'supple fellows with their 
 plaids, targes, and dorlachs ' " * [swords]. 
 
 I cannot doubt that the Macdonalds and Camerons 
 advanced to the charge to the stirring strains of the 
 pibroch of Donald Dhu.t Byron, in his beautiful and 
 touching description of the midnight march of the 
 British forces from Brussels to Waterloo, gives a just 
 
 * Napier, p. 296. 
 
 f " Dark-complexioned Donald." 
 
95 
 
 and true account of the powerful effect on the High- 
 land soldier of his clan pibroch : — 
 
 ''And wild and high the 'Camerons' gathering' rose! 
 The war-note of Locheil, which Albyn's hills 
 Have heard, and heard, too, have their Saxon foes — 
 How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
 Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills 
 Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
 With the fierce native daring which instills 
 The stirring memory of a thousand years, 
 And Evan's,* Donald's/)* fame rings in each clansman's ears." 
 
 The pibroch of Donald Dhu, just mentioned, was 
 composed by a Gaelic bard in commemoration of a 
 much greater battle, fought many years before on the 
 same ground. The most spirited ode ever written by 
 Sir Walter Scott is founded on the Gaelic pibroch, and 
 presents vividly to the imagination the summons, the 
 gathering, and onset of 10,000 Islesmen and their 
 allies on the troops of James I. of Scotland, who were 
 disastrously defeated : — 
 
 a Pibroch of Donald Dhu, 
 Pibroch of Donald, 
 Wake thy wild voice anew. 
 Summon Clan Conuil.^: 
 
 "Come from deep glen 
 
 And from mountain so rocky, 
 
 * Sir Evan was the chief and leader of the Camerons at this battle of 
 Inverlochy. 
 
 fSir Donald (the "Gentle Locheil"), their chief in the Eebellion of 
 1745. 
 
 X The Clan Macdonald. 
 
96 
 
 The war-pipe and pennon 
 
 Are at Inverlochy. 
 Come every hill plaid 
 
 And true heart that wears one, 
 Come every steel blade 
 
 And strong hand that bears one : 
 Leave nntended the herd 
 
 The flock without shelter ; 
 Leave the corpse uninterred, 
 
 The bride at the altar. 
 
 "Come as the winds come, 
 When forests are rended, 
 Come as the waves come, 
 When navies are stranded. 
 
 "Fast they come, fast they come ; 
 
 See how they gather ! 
 Wide waves the eagle plume * 
 
 Blended with heather, f 
 Cast your plaids, 
 
 Draw your blades, 
 Forward each man set! 
 Pibroch of Donald Dhu, 
 
 Now for the onset!" 
 
 After the dispersion of Donald's forces, James eagerly 
 and perseveringly sought to get hold of him, for the 
 purpose of inflicting condign punishment on him; and 
 at length he was forced, to escape pursuit, to fly to 
 Ireland, and conceal himself in his mothers (Margery 
 
 * The eagle's feather indicated the rank of the individual. A single 
 feather, a gentleman or duinewassel; two, the chief of a family; and 
 three, the chief of a clan. 
 
 t The common heather was the badge of the Clan Macdonald. 
 
97 
 
 Bysset's) territory in the Glens of Antrim. Here he 
 prevailed upon one of the O'Neills to send a present of 
 his head to James, which effectually put an end to all 
 further pursuit. History has not recorded on whose 
 shoulders the head in question had stood; but it is 
 certain Donald Dhu had no claim to it, as, for many 
 years after James's death, he was a noted leader of 
 the Clandonald South. 
 
 On the present occasion, the battle was for some 
 time stoutly fought — Highlander against Highlander, 
 "Greek meeting Greek": — 
 
 "The brave O'Cahan had the honor of receiving the first 
 onset, which was most manfully given by the 'flower of 
 Diarmid.' But the three divisions of the royal army charged 
 simultaneously, and Argyle's standard being taken, the 
 Campbells broke in irretrievable confusion."* 
 
 The gallant Sir Duncan Campbell, Argyle's substi- 
 tute, was singled out, and 
 
 "Slain by Major-General • Alaster MacColl, who by one 
 blow of a two-handed claymore swept off his head and 
 helmet together,"+ — 
 
 thus entitling himself to the spolia opima. Mont- 
 rose's victory was complete, and the slaughter of the 
 Clan Campbell, in a pursuit of nine miles, was terrible. 
 
 "This was the greatest disaster that ever befel the race of 
 Diarmid, as the Campbells were called in the Highlands; it 
 
 * Napier, p. 297. 
 
 t Grant's Memoirs of Montrose, p. 222. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 being generally remarked that they were as fortunate in the 
 issue of their undertakings, as they were sagacious in plan- 
 ning, and courageous in executing them. Of the number 
 slain, nearly 500 were dunniwassels, or gentleman claiming 
 descent from known and respected houses. And, in the 
 opinion of many of the clan, even this heavy loss was 
 exceeded by the disgrace arising from the inglorious conduct 
 of their chief, whose galley weighed anchor when the day 
 was lost, and sailed down the lake with all the speed to 
 which sails and oars could impel her."* 
 
 Montrose remained a few days at Inverlochy to 
 refresh his wearied troops, and then marching in a 
 north-easterly direction through Strath Errick, Strath 
 Nairn, and Strath Spey, entered Elgin, the capital of 
 Morayshire, on the 14th of February. On this occa- 
 sion he had two objects in view: — (1) He was now 
 in the vicinity of the powerful Eoyalist clan Gordon, 
 and hoped to induce them loyally to join his standard. 
 But the Marquis of Huntly, the chief of that clan, 
 never, from jealousy of Montrose as was believed, 
 gave him support. Lord Lewis Gordon had even 
 fought in the ranks of his maternal uncle Argyle, and 
 although Lords Gordon and Aboyne, Huntly 's eldest 
 and second sons, were staunch cavaliers, they were 
 never able to bring nearly the full force of the clan to 
 the support of Montrose. (2) The second object of 
 this leader was to march southwards, through the 
 eastern counties, harrying the Covenanters with fire 
 
 *Sir W. Scott, Legend of Montrose, vol. xv. of Waverley Novels, p. 287-8. 
 
99 
 
 and sword, and hoping eventually to establish himself 
 in the Lowlands. The fury of the General Assembly 
 is amusingly though revoltingly exhibited at this 
 time in their manifesto against him and his abettors. 
 They are — 
 
 * The popish, prelatical, and malignant faction, which had 
 displayed a banner against the Lord and his Church in all 
 the three kingdoms, being set on fire by hell, and by the 
 special inspiration of Satan, who is full of fury because he 
 hath but a short time to reign. The cockatrice before hatched 
 is now broken forth into a viper. In the meantime the 
 hellish crew, under the conduct of the excommunicated and 
 forfeited Earle of Montrose and of Alaster MacDonald (Mac- 
 Colkeitach), a Papist outlaw, doth exercise such barbarous, 
 unnatural, horrid, and unheard-of cruelty, as is above ex- 
 pression." 
 
 In pursuance of this second object, Montrose, with 
 about 3,000 foot and 300 horse, proceeded southwards 
 early in March, meeting with no serious obstruction 
 till he reached Brechin, soon after which he was con- 
 fronted by Generals Baillie and Urrie (better known 
 as General Hurry, a soldier of the Dugald Dalgetty 
 class) with a greatly superior army. For two days 
 the hostile forces occupied the opposite banks of the 
 Isla, swollen by the melting snow and winter's rain, 
 within musket-shot of each other. Montrose now 
 conceived the bold project of eluding Baillie alto- 
 gether, and pushing forwards into the Lowlands. At 
 this critical moment, Lord Lewis Gordon drew off the 
 
 7 
 
100 
 
 greater number of the Gordons, " basely deserting his 
 brother and Montrose when ready to engage the 
 enemy/' Montrose had reached Dunkeld when he 
 learned that Baillie had defeated his object by a rapid 
 march to Perth, and so placing himself between the 
 royal force and the Lowlands. Thus foiled, Montrose 
 determined to attack the rich city of Dundee with 
 200 horse under Lord Gordon, and 800 of Alaster 
 MacColl's musketeers. Having sent a flag of truce 
 by Lieutenant John Gordon to summon the city, the 
 flag was violated by the disarming and imprisonment 
 of Gordon ; whereupon the assault was instantly 
 ordered, Montrose superintending the attack from a 
 hill overlooking the city. The gates were quickly 
 burst open, their own cannon turned against the 
 citizens, and the town plundered and fired in several 
 places. The outrages were put, as usual, to the credit 
 of the Irishes — 
 
 "Whether justly or unjustly," says Grant, "it is now im- 
 possible to say. In extenuation, it must be borne in mind 
 that these brave men had no other pay or means of subsis- 
 tence than what they derived from simple plunder, and 
 moreover that every one of them that fell into the hands of 
 the Covenanters was shot without mercy."* 
 
 In the afternoon, a breathless messenger brought 
 intelligence that Baillie was rapidly advancing to the 
 rescue of Dundee, that his horse were galloping down 
 
 * Grant, p. 238. 
 
101 
 
 the carse of Gowrie, and would be speedily upon the 
 plunderers. Some advised Montrose to leave them to 
 their fate, and fly with the horse; others, that they 
 should meet Baillie and all die fighting. " Gentle- 
 men," said Montrose, " I implore of you to do your 
 duty — leave the management to me, the event to God." 
 By pipe and trumpet he summoned his soldiers, many 
 of them intoxicated, to their colours, and, by extra- 
 ordinary exertions, drew off nearly his entire force, 
 commencing, at six o'clock in the evening of April the 
 4th, a rapid retreat of three days and two nights, 
 hotly pursued by Urrie, while Baillie used every 
 exertion, but in vain, to attack him in flank. At 
 Aberbrothwick, which he reached before daybreak on 
 the 5th, he took a direction at a right angle to his 
 former course, and marching along the south side of the 
 South Esk crossed a considerable part of Forfarshire 
 to Kirriemuir, in the neighbourhood of which he was 
 nearly surprised by Urrie. His officers were under 
 the necessity of pricking with their swords some of 
 the surbated soldiers, to rouse them to a sense of their 
 danger and the necessity of renewing their retreat; 
 Soon after, having crossed the South Esk, they found 
 security from further pursuit in the defiles of Glen 
 Esk, and among the braes of Angus and spurs of the 
 Grampians. Montrose had now the satisfaction of 
 learning that the force he had detached to Brechin, 
 before the storming of Dundee, was also in safety 
 
102 
 
 among the mountains. His masterly retreat on this 
 occasion rivals his most brilliant exploits in offensive 
 war. Dr. Wishart, in his classical Latin Memoirs of 
 Montrose, says : — 
 
 "I have often heard those who were esteemed the most 
 experienced officers, not in Britain only, but in France and 
 Germany, prefer this march to Jiis most celebrated victories." 
 
 Whilst here recruiting his exhausted troops, many 
 of his Highland volunteers left him for their homes, 
 reducing his force to little more than 50 horse and 
 500 foot. Lord Gordon had been sent to endeavour 
 to bring back his clansmen who had been withdrawn 
 by his brother, Lord Lewis; and Alaster MacColl had 
 been a second time employed to levy fresh recruits, 
 which service he performed successfully among the 
 neighbouring clans. 
 
 Whilst here also, James Small, a gentleman of 
 Charles's court, disguised as a pedlar, brought letters 
 to Montrose — one from the King, and one announcing 
 that the Earl of Nithsdale, Lord Herries, Lord Aboyne, 
 and thirty other Scottish Cavaliers, besieged by Major- 
 General David Leslie in Carlisle, had broken through 
 the besiegers, sword in hand, and were moving north- 
 wards in search of the royal army. Small, on his 
 return to England, was captured at Edinburgh, and at 
 once hanged for the crime of having carried letters to 
 Montrose — one of many thousands of samples of the 
 truculence with which the Covenanters displayed their 
 
103 
 
 contempt of what the purest of the elect familiarly 
 designated as " the beggarly elements of justice and 
 humanity. "* 
 
 Montrose now determined to go in search of the 
 gallant fugitives, and, marching through the Gram- 
 pians, halted at Crieff, on the Earn, a few miles west 
 of Perth, where Baillie was posted ; who, on learning 
 this, resolved to surprise Montrose by a night march 
 with 2,000 infantiy and 500 horse ; but the Marquis, 
 no less vigilant than his antagonist, rode out on the 
 same night with a reconnoitring party of his 50 horse, 
 and, discovering Baillie's overwhelming force in the 
 grey dawn, galloped back to his camp and ordered 
 an immediate retreat to the wild and rugged banks of 
 Loch Earn, ten miles west of Crieff, where he found 
 perfect security from pursuit. Next day he marched 
 further — to Menteith, south of Loch Katrine, where he 
 had the satisfaction of meeting the cavaliers he was in 
 search of, and his gallant nephew, the young Master 
 of Napier, who had just made his escape from prison. 
 The joy of this meeting was heightened by the intel- 
 ligence that Alaster MacColl, having raised 2,000 
 Highlanders in his recruiting expedition, had ravaged 
 the lands of Lord Balmerino and routed the Earl of 
 Balcarris's regiment of horse, which had been dis- 
 patched against him; thus causing a diversion, drawing 
 Baillie's troops away from Montrose, and leaving open 
 
 * Hume's History of England, vol. vii., p. 156 : Dublin, 1780. 
 
104 
 
 his line of march by Athol and the Grampians to the 
 rescue of Lord Gordon, who was now, as Montrose 
 was informed by messengers from that lord, in 
 extreme danger of being crushed by Urrie with 
 greatly superior forces. Montrose at once broke up 
 his camp, distant at least one hundred and ten miles 
 from Lord Gordon's, and by forced marches through a 
 very difficult country, joined him about the 1st of 
 May, to the astonishment of Urrie, who believed him 
 to be at this time a fugitive on the south side of the 
 Grampians, and to the terror of the Presbyterian 
 troops. About the same time, Alaster MacColl joined 
 him with his recruits. 
 
 It was now Urrie's turn to retreat, which he 
 did rapidly and skilfully, closely pursued, till he 
 attained security and reinforcement at Inverness. 
 While Urrie was thus reinforced at Inverness, Mont- 
 rose was being weakened in the accustomed manner 
 by the withdrawal of a large body of his Highlanders. 
 Baillie had been burning and plundering the whole 
 district of Athol, and the Athol men hurried home to 
 protect their families and preserve their property. 
 Urrie consequently again became the assailant. Mont- 
 rose having taken up a position with his reduced forces 
 (about 1,500 foot and 250 horse) at Auldern, a village 
 a few miles from Nairn, awaited the attack of Urrie, 
 who made a night-march from Inverness in hopes of 
 surprising the enemy; in which he would probably 
 
105 
 
 have succeeded but for a singular accident. In the 
 march across Culloden Moor and along the shore of 
 the Moray Firth, the Covenanters had been drenched 
 with rain, and, on approaching Auldern, fearing that 
 the powder in their pieces had been spoiled by the 
 rain, they went down on the beach to try to discharge 
 them, hoping that the noise of the volley, if it occurred, 
 would be blown out to sea. A malignant breeze, 
 however, suddenly sprung up, carried the thunder to 
 Auldern, and warned the malignant Cavaliers of the 
 approach of the foe. 
 
 Montrose drew up his small force with consummate 
 skill. In the village, the centre of his position, he 
 placed some few pieces of small cannon, some banners, 
 and pikemen, to make a show. In truth, he had no 
 centre. On the right he placed Alaster McDonnell and 
 his Irishes, protected from the charge of horse by the 
 enclosures and garden-walls of the village, and favour- 
 ably placed for firing on the enemy as they struggled 
 up the rising ground, by which they had to make their 
 attack. Here the Koyal Standard was ostentatiously 
 displayed, in the hope of attracting Urrie's principal 
 attack to this strong position. He gave Alaster strict 
 injunctions on no account to leave his post. On the left 
 flank, where Montrose himself commanded, were placed 
 the infantry of the Gordons, Camerons, and Eoses, and 
 the Gordon horse. Urrie fell into the trap prepared 
 for him, and made his principal attack on McDonnell's 
 
106 
 
 strong position. Soon after the commencement of the 
 battle, by some perfectly incomprehensible mistake, or 
 worse, Major Drummond, an officer of Urrie's, brought 
 his horse across the advancing infantry, causing great 
 confusion ; and Alaster, stung by the taunts of the 
 enemy who upbraided him with cowardice for fighting 
 from behind walls, and in disobedience of orders, 
 rushed out to meet the Covenanters hand to hand. 
 
 The " lion-hearted" MacColl has been charged often 
 with insubordination and rashness : but brave men 
 are apt to be rash ; and as to his inexcusable disre- 
 gard of orders on this occasion, I am not aware of any 
 other instance, in his short military career of six years, 
 on which a charge of insubordination could be fairly 
 founded ; and he now did the best the circumstances 
 admitted of to repair the evil effects of his rashness, by 
 retreating to his defences, and being among the last to 
 enter the gate through which he had made his attack. 
 Montrose now received the alarming intelligence that 
 McDonnell had left the inclosures, and had been 
 routed. With the admirable presence of mind of 
 military genius, he instantly called out to the officers 
 of the Gordon horse : — 
 
 McDonnell is gaining the victory single-handed ! Come, 
 come, my Lord Gordon; shall he carry all before him and 
 leave no laurels for the house of Huntly ? Charge ! ' " * 
 
 * Napier, p. 332. 
 
107 
 
 The impetuous charge of the Gordons that followed, 
 drove Urrie's dragoons through his infantry and off 
 the field, and the victory was quickly completed by 
 the charge of the Highland foot. Some companies 
 which had been drawn from Monroe's troops in 
 Carrickfergus stood their ground, and perished to a 
 man. In the fight and headlong flight, more of the 
 Covenanters were slain than equalled Montrose's entire 
 force. Drummond was immediately tried by court- 
 martial, and shot. Here again, Alaster MacColTs 
 Irishmen must have formed a large majority of the 
 Royalist troops. In the battle of Inverlochy they 
 about equalled the Highlanders in number. 
 
 Not many days after the battle of Auldern, Baillie 
 having arrived with very superior forces within two 
 miles of the camp of the Cavaliers, Montrose resolved 
 to betake himself to the friendly fastnesses of the 
 mountains once more. He retreated up Strath Spey, 
 pursued by Baillie, till he approached his old refuge — 
 the wild and rugged hills of Badenoch. Here Baillie 
 abandoned his fruitless toil and retired to Inverness. 
 No sooner was Montrose rid of his pursuers than he 
 returned to the low country, for the purpose of prose- 
 cuting his raid upon the Covenanters ; but on hearing 
 that Baillie had returned to Aberdeenshire, and was 
 wasting the Gordon country with fire and sword, he 
 set out forthwith to the relief of his friends. On 
 coming up with Baillie, occupying a strong position, 
 
108 
 
 he civilly invited the old soldier to come to even 
 ground for a fair stand-up fight, to which Baillie 
 curtly but very reasonably replied — "I will receive 
 no orders from an enemy. Neither will I give battle 
 but to please myself." The Presbyterian force was 
 here, for the first time, inferior in number to that of 
 the Royalists. Nevertheless, Baillie, being informed 
 that Alaster MacColl had been sent on another recruit- 
 ing mission to the Western Highlands and Isles, 
 resolved to attack Montrose, who had taken a strong 
 position at the village of Alford, on the Don, in 
 Aberdeenshire, before the arrival of the expected re- 
 inforcement. On the night of July the 1st, 1645, 
 Baillie encamped at a short distance from Alford, and 
 early next morning moved forward to engage the 
 enemy. Montrose, who had slept at a house two 
 miles from his camp, joined his troops by daybreak, 
 and gave them orders to stand to their arms, and 
 prepare for battle. 
 
 " Unfortunately," says Grant * " the Ogilvies were absent, 
 together with Alaster MacColkeitach and Patrick (Graham) 
 of Inchbrakie ; but the Marquis had all the claymores and 
 cavalry of the Gordon clan, whom Lord Gordon had mus- 
 tered ; the Islesmen and Irish ; the MacDonells of Glengarry, 
 under their chief, the valiant Angus Mac Vich Alister ; the 
 MacDonalds of Clanranald ; a few of the Farquharsons under 
 Inveray ; 200 men of Strathavon, led by William Gordon of 
 Minimore and his three gallant sons ; the MacPhersons of 
 
 * Grant, p. 260. 
 
109 
 
 Badenoch, and one or two of the lesser tribes who dwelt in the 
 great forest of Athol. These made only 2,650 claymores, 
 with 250 horse. 
 
 " By detachments left at various places, Baillie's force had 
 dwindled down to 2,000 pikes and musketeers ; but he had 
 the cavalry regiments of the Earl of Balcarris and Colonel 
 Halkett, each above 300 strong. Thus Alibrd was the first 
 encounter in which the King's forces were equal or superior 
 to the foe ; so Montrose could never for a moment doubt of 
 proving victorious." 
 
 Montrose occupied a ridge, to reach which, in 
 coming to close quarters, Baillie had to ascend a 
 rather steep slope exposed to the enemy's fire ; and, 
 while engaged in this movement, Balcarris made a 
 premature charge with his whole column of horse, on 
 Montrose's right wing. The charge was met by the 
 Gordon horse, the Irish, and the MacDonells of Glen- 
 garry, with such firmness that the Earl's regiment 
 retired in disorder. Balcarris rallied and brought 
 them to the charge again and again ; but at length, 
 staggered by a volley of musketry, and charged in 
 their turn by the Gordon horse, they turned and fled. 
 Montrose instantly charged with his whole force, him- 
 self leading the reserve. The battle was quickly 
 converted into a headlong rout, and Montrose's fifth 
 victory was complete. 
 
 In the rout, nearly all Baillie's infantry perished ; 
 1,600 of the Covenanters were counted dead on the 
 field. One death on the Koyalist side caused deep 
 grief to Montrose and his whole army. Lord Gordon, 
 
110 
 
 the flower of the Scottish Cavaliers, had vowed that he 
 would capture Baillie in the midst of his men, and 
 had actually seized him, and was dragging him from 
 his horse, when he received a musket-shot in the back 
 and fell dead under his horse's hoofs. Even the Irish 
 lamented his death. " These forrainers," says Gordon 
 of Euthven, " I mean the Irishes, did so incessantly 
 bewail him, that they coeld not speak, nor call him to 
 memorie afterwards ; but did revere his obsequies with 
 new plaintes and teares ; so general was the conquest 
 that his noble vertues and courteous cariage had made 
 of all heartes." 
 
 Argyle and seventeen members of the " managing 
 committee 99 were present at the battle of Alford. He 
 escaped, having prudently provided for his safety 
 before the battle, by having relays of horses ready at 
 three different places. 
 
 Great exertions were now made by the Presbyterian 
 parliament to raise fresh troops. A levy of 8,800 
 regular infantry and 500 horse was ordered. Sir 
 John Middleton was directed to send 200 of his best 
 dragoons from England, and Monroe was recalled from 
 Ireland with 1,000 musketeers. Montrose also was 
 now largely reinforced. Alaster McDonnell, after a two- 
 months' absence, returned, bringing 700 Macleans, 500 
 Clanranald Macdonalds, 500 Glengarry MacDonells, 
 and smaller numbers of other clans. These, with the 
 Athol men brought in by Graham of Inchbrakie, 
 
Ill 
 
 MacGregors, MacNabs, MacPhersons, Stewarts of 
 Appin, and Farquharsons, increased Montrose's army 
 by at least 5,000 hardy, brave, and well-armed men, 
 and determined him to fulfil without delay his 
 cherished purpose of carrying the war into the Low- 
 lands. 
 
 Charles had intimated his desire and intention to 
 force his way through the north of England and join 
 Montrose, who consequently resolved to push on with 
 the hope of uniting his forces with the King's at the 
 Border. He accordingly marched by Dunkeld and 
 Perth, where Baillie was now posted with 6,000 
 infantry and some hundreds of horse. Some unim- 
 portant skirmishing took place here, which scarcely 
 interrupted Montrose's march. He crossed Kinross- 
 shire, and passing north of Stirling, crossed the Forth 
 at the ford of Frew, at its junction with the Teith. 
 As he passed along the skirts of the Ochill mountains, 
 in view of a stronghold of Argyle's, the Macleans, who 
 had suffered many wrongs inflicted by the Clan Camp- 
 bell, could not resist attacking the Castle of Gloom. 
 They quitted the line of march, burst the gates of the 
 Castle, and, firing it, left nothing standing but the 
 walls, the ruins of which still form a noble object in 
 its romantic site, a monument of clan vindictiveness. 
 
 Baillie, with 7,000 foot and 800 horse, accompanied 
 by Argyle and the Field Committee, a band of 
 ministers whose insolent ignorance was continually 
 
112 
 
 defeating the skilful tactics of the Covenanting gene- 
 rals, for the most part men who had acquired military 
 experience on the Continent under Gustavus Adolphus, 
 had closely followed the Royalists, and both the Field 
 Committee and Montrose were anxious for an engage- 
 ment. Montrose was aware that the Earl of Eglinton 
 and other Covenanting lords of the south-west of 
 Scotland were raising recruits ; and he was eager 
 to fight before they formed a junction with Baillie. 
 This excellent soldier had now passed Stirling, and 
 Montrose, having made a night march to meet him, 
 had taken post about two miles east of Kilsyth, where 
 Baillie, on the morning of August the 1 5th, unwillingly 
 consented to attack him. Montrose had 5,000 infan- 
 try and 500 horse, Baillie at least 2,000 more. 
 
 The accounts of this battle are so confused that it 
 is impossible to give an intelligible description of it. 
 One thing, however, is clear — that the incredible pre- 
 sumption of Argyle and his church-militant clergy 
 assured Montrose's victory before a blow was struck — 
 by urging Baillie to fight, to which he was averse, and 
 by repeatedly countermanding his orders and altering 
 the dispositions he had made. The great advantage 
 thus bestowed on the Royalists was jeopardised by a 
 rash and premature attack made by the Macleans and 
 MacDonalds of Clanranald, on ground where they 
 were in imminent danger of being cut to pieces. 
 Montrose instantly saw their perilous error, and 
 
113 
 
 galloping to the gallant old Earl of Airlie, exclaimed 
 — " My Lord, you see into what a hose-net those poor 
 fellows have fallen by their rashness ! Unless relieved, 
 they will be trodden down by the enemy's horse. 
 The eyes and hearts of all men turn to your Lordship, 
 and I know of none more worthy to repel the foe and 
 bring off our comrades : forward, then, in the name of 
 God." The brave old man, now nearly seventy years 
 old, immediately made a furious charge on the Cove- 
 nanters, seconded by Lord Aboyne and the Gordon 
 horse ; and the Highlanders, thus relieved, drove the 
 enemy before them. The reserve brigade of three 
 regiments of Fifeshire Whigs, whose comrades had 
 suffered terribly at Tippermuir. deeming the day lost, 
 fled without firing a shot. The whole Highland line 
 now charged, and in a very short time the rout of the 
 Covenanters was complete. They were pursued with 
 great slaughter for many miles, 4,000 or 5,000 of them 
 being slain. Baillie, with some of his officers and a 
 remnant of his 7,000 escaped to Stirling ; and Argyle, 
 for the fifth time within a year, fled precipitately (as 
 he had done at Dunkeld, Inverary, Inverlochy, and 
 Alford) for dear life ; till, reaching South Ferry and 
 taking ship, he sailed to Berwick-on-Tweed, accom- 
 panied by some of his clerico-military friends. 
 
 Montrose was now master of the whole open country 
 of Scotland. Outside a few fortresses the Covenanters 
 had no force to oppose him. He was received and 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 sumptuously entertained in Covenanting Glasgow. 
 Glencairn and other Puritan lords of Ayrshire and 
 the neighbouring counties fled to their brethren in 
 Carrickfergus, and all the Whig western counties 
 submitted to him. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nevertheless, the day of disaster was at hand, and 
 in less than a month the remnant of his force remain- 
 ing with him was annihilated. Still bent on his 
 project of uniting his troops with the King's, he 
 encamped at Bothwell Muir on the Clyde, eight or ten 
 miles from Glasgow, and soon after moved nearer the 
 Border in hopes of receiving reinforcements from the 
 Homes, Kers, Douglases, and other loyal lords of the 
 Border counties. These hopes were grievously, if not 
 traitorously, disappointed. It is hard to believe that 
 Stewart, Earl of Traquair, did not act traitorously 
 While at Bothwell Muir, where forty-four years after 
 was fought the battle of Bothwell Brig, Monruouth 
 commanding the troops of Charles II., and where the 
 Covenanters were addressed, as tradition says, with 
 pithy eloquence never surpassed, as the English force 
 advanced to the charge : — " There they're comin', and 
 if you dinna kill them they'll kill you ;" and where a 
 friend of mine was informed by a peasant of the 
 neighbourhood, " a famous battle had been fought, 
 
115 
 
 lang syne, between the Catholics and the Christians." 
 Montrose was here joined by Sir Eobert Spottis- 
 woode, Secretary of State for Scotland, bearing a 
 commission (for which crime he was put to death by 
 the Covenanters) appointing the Marquis Lieutenant 
 Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom ; and 
 here he reviewed his whole army, "and under the 
 Eoyal Standard of Scotland opened his new commis- 
 sion, and delivered a brief but eloquent harangue, suited 
 to the wild spirit of his hearers ; and with his own 
 good sword he knighted the flower of his Highland 
 heroes — him of the long patronymic — Alaster Mac- 
 Colkeitach - MhicGillespie - MhicCholla - MhicAlaster- 
 MhiclanCattanach"* — Alexander the son of Coll the 
 left-handed — son of Archibald — son of Coll — son of 
 Alexander — son of Warlike J ohn ; the first and the 
 two last chiefs of their family, the McDonnells of Isla 
 Cantyre and the Glens, or Clan Donald South. 
 
 But now, to the grief of Montrose, at this culmina- 
 tion of his fame, his Highland army fell to pieces. 
 The clans of Athole and the Macleans, 3,000 in num- 
 ber, hearing that their dwellings had been destroyed, 
 and their families left to face the rigour of the coming 
 winter homeless, departed to rebuild what the troops 
 of Baillie in the north, and the Campbells in the west, 
 had burned and overthrown. Others were urged by 
 
 * Grant, p. 288. 
 
 S* 
 
116 
 
 the necessity of securing their little harvests, lest if 
 they did not their families should starve. 
 
 " Sir Alaster MacColkeitach, having unfortunately learned 
 about this time that his friends, relations, and clansmen, who 
 had fled from the vengeance of the Campbells to the Isles of 
 Kachlin and Jura, were pursued thither by the Laird of 
 Ardkinglas, the Captain of Skipness, and others acting under 
 the orders of Argyle, became animated with a true Highland 
 longing for reprisal ; for the Covenanters treated his people 
 with frightful severity, slaying women and children, even nurs- 
 lings at the breast. All the influence of the Captain General, 
 whom he loved so well, failed to restrain him. Every 
 entreaty and argument were used by Montrose and by Airlie 
 to induce him to stay, for they knew his value, and also that 
 they never could deem themselves completely successful while 
 the whole armed force of Scotland occupied the north of Eng- 
 land, and could be recalled in a week. Sir Alexander replied 
 that 'he would be no true Highlander if he preferred even 
 the King's cause to that of his own blood and kindred and 
 with 500 Highlanders and 120 chosen Irish musketeers he 
 marched on the 3rd of September for the West country, 
 bidding adieu to Montrose never to meet him more. . . . 
 Filial anxiety compelled Viscount Aboyne [now Huntlys 
 eldest surviving son] to draw off his followers, to save from 
 capture and destruction his father, who was lurking in 
 Sutherland ; and on the 4th of September he also left the 
 camp at Bothwell ; but Sir Nathaniel Gordon remained."* 
 
 Thus, independently of Sir Alaster's men, about 
 4,000 of his Highlanders left Montrose ; the Irish, 
 with the exception of 120 men, remaining. 
 
 These Highland deserters, as they are often calum- 
 
 * Grant, pp. 290-1. 
 
117 
 
 niously called, departed on an imperative call of duty, 
 and in the exercise of their prescriptive right. Of this 
 Montrose was perfectly aware, and though deeply 
 grieved by their departure, never thought of forbid- 
 ding or resenting it. 
 
 The further charge has often been urged against Sir 
 Alaster, that his desertion, as it is called, was the cause 
 of the disaster at Philiphaugh. The charge is simply 
 absurd. It is probable that his 500 Highlanders 
 would have gone home at this time, whether he had 
 departed or not. I will assume, however, that he 
 withdrew from Montrose every one of his 650 men. 
 At Philiphaugh the Marquis had not quite 1,500 men. 
 With the addition of MacColTs 650, his force would 
 have numbered about 2,150. In the grey dawn of 
 September the 13th, and shrouded in a thick mist, 
 David Leslie fell upon him by a complete surprise 
 with 6,000 of the flower of the horse of the Scottish 
 army in England. It is therefore manifest that the 
 sole consequence of the addition of Sir Alaster's men 
 to the Koyalist 1,500 would have been to have added 
 some hundreds to the number of the slain, and perhaps 
 fifty or sixty to that of the murdered. There is no 
 lack, however, of responsibility for the disaster on the 
 part of others, even of Charles himself. Leslie, as was 
 well known, had to march from the siege of Hereford 
 with 6,000 horse to attack Montrose, and was per- 
 mitted to traverse a great part of England and 
 Scotland entirely unmolested : — 
 
118 
 
 " When Leslie was hurrying northwards, after the battle of 
 Kilsyth, he paused at Eotherham, with men and horses so 
 fatigued that, as he himself afterwards declared, they could 
 have made no effectual resistance. The King was within ten 
 miles of him, at Doncaster, at the head of 4,000 Cavaliers, 
 while 3,000 foot, raised by the gentlemen of Yorkshire, were 
 about to join him. He could have annihilated Leslie's force, 
 and had not the impetuous Eupert been absent, that blow 
 would in all probability have been struck."* 
 
 When Montrose, in obedience to Charles's orders, 
 moved towards the Border, he expected zealous aid 
 from the Eoyalist noblemen and gentlemen of that 
 quarter, and even hoped to be joined by the King him- 
 self. He was totally disappointed in both respects. 
 On the 4th of September he moved from Bothwell 
 Muir with 200 horse, all gentlemen, and 700 foot. 
 Most of the latter were Colonel O'Cahans and Major 
 MacLoghlin's Irish musketeers. On the 6th he re- 
 ceived certain intelligence from Lord Erskine that 
 Leslie was at Berwick-on-Tweed. It seems very strange 
 that he did not instantly retreat to his strongholds 
 among the Grampians. Passing south of Edinburgh, 
 and descending the Vale of Gala, he was there joined 
 by the Marquis of Douglas, with a few of the Annan- 
 dale men, many of those whom his influence had in- 
 duced to take arms having deserted. 
 
 " There, too, he was met by Traquair, and welcomed with 
 warm professions of loyalty and affection ; and next day there 
 
 * Napier, p. 371. 
 
119 
 
 repaired to the Eoyal Standard a well appointed troop of 
 horse led by John Stewart — Lord Linton — the Earl's eldest 
 son. Traquair also undertook the duty, which he had better 
 have left to others — that of acquainting the Marquis of the 
 exact movements of Sir David Leslie."* 
 
 In the performance of this task Traquair most egre- 
 giously failed ; and on the night of the 12th of Sep- 
 tember, when Montrose's little army of about 1,000 
 foot and 500 horse was encamped at Philiphaugh, 
 Traquair sent private orders to his son to withdraw his 
 troops, which the young noble immediately obeyed 
 secretly, by favour of the night. In the grey dawn of 
 the next morning, Philiphaugh being covered with a 
 dense fog, Montrose, who had spent the night with 
 some of his officers in Selkirk hard by, writing des- 
 patches, was alarmed by the sound of musketry, and 
 instantly seizing his rapier, mounted the first horse 
 he found, and galloped across the Ettrick to the camp, 
 followed by his officers. They soon perceived the 
 hopelessness of the contest, and at first thought merely 
 of selling their lives as dearly as possible, but were 
 persuaded by Sir John Dalziel, of Glenae, to take ad- 
 vantage of their immediate assailants being diverted 
 by the plunder of the baggage, and to cut their way 
 by dint of sword through the enemy. The proposal 
 was adopted ; and Montrose, followed by Lords 
 Douglas, Crawford, Napier, and Erskine, and some 
 
 * Grant, p. 293. 
 
120 
 
 other gentlemen, fled at full speed up the Yarrow. It 
 is remarkable that Sir John Dalziel was brother of the 
 Earl of Carnwath, the person who took Charles out of 
 the field after the loss of the battle of Naseby, seizing 
 hold of his horse's bridle, and saying, " Will ye go 
 upon your death V 
 
 The main body of the Irish retired to an enclosure 
 on an eminence, " which," says Guthry, " they main- 
 tained till Stuart, the adjutant, being among them, 
 procured quarter for them from David Leslie, where- 
 upon they delivered up their arms, and came forth to 
 a plain field, as they were directed." The clergy, 
 however, argued that it would be impious to spare the 
 lives of such wretches, that Stuart alone had been ad- 
 mitted to quarter, and that the rest should be put to 
 death, quoting in support of their outrage on "the 
 beggarly elements of justice and humanity": — "Now 
 go smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they 
 have, and spare them not, but slay both man and 
 woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel 
 and ass." 
 
 In my opinion, it matters not at all whether the 
 quarter was intended to include the Irish or not. 
 What followed was in either case an atrocious 
 massacre : 400 of these brave men were on the next 
 morning marched two miles up the Yarrow, enclosed 
 in the courtyard of Lord Cassilis's Castle of Newark, 
 and shot down to a man. The 150 Irish who accom- 
 
121 
 
 panied Sir Alaster met the same fate in May, 1646, in 
 
 Cantyre ; 300 women were slain in the camp, and 
 
 says Grant : — 
 
 "Eighty other women and children, fugitives from that 
 dreadful scene, were overtaken at Linlithgow by the Coven- 
 anters, who flung them over a high bridge into the foaming 
 Avon, fifty feet below ; there they were all drowned, for a few 
 who reached the banks were thrust back by pikes and des- 
 troyed. Thus man and woman, infant and suckling, perished ; 
 for again and again were the conquerors told that the curses 
 which befel those w T ho spared the enemies of God would fall 
 npon him who suffered one Amalekite to escape."* 
 
 Montrose effected his escape to the Highlands, and 
 during the winter and spring of 1646 used every exer- 
 tion, with little success, to raise another Eoyalist 
 army, till Charles wrote him orders from Newcastle 
 on the 19th of May, 1646, to lay down his arms, and 
 retire into France. 
 
 Sir Alexander McDonnell, having succeeded in 
 raising 1,200 Highlanders, had been engaged in 
 warfare with the Campbells during the winter ; and 
 now Sir David Leslie marched into the Western 
 Highlands to attack him with four regiments of 
 infantry, three troops of horse, and three of dragoons, 
 reinforced by Argyle with a body of his clan burning 
 for revenge. On 25th of May a sanguinary battle was 
 fought in Cantyre, where it borders on Knapdale : — 
 
 " Sir Alaster, with his native Islesmen, his 150 musketeers, 
 
 * Grant, p. 301. 
 
122 
 
 and the clan MacDougal, an ancient tribe of Lome, endea- 
 voured to defend Tarbet, part of his old and lawful patrimony, 
 from which his father had been expelled by the Campbells 
 [and James the Sixth in 1615]. The whole day the strife 
 continued among the mountains, and, armed only with their 
 swords and shields, again and again the Celtic warriors flung 
 themselves upon the serried pikes of the Covenant, and many 
 acts of high individual valour were performed. By nightfall 
 the contest was ended, but Sir Alaster was completely routed, 
 with the loss of 200 men, eight pieces of cannon, and all 
 his ammunition. By a stratagem he retired to his boats, 
 and sought shelter in the Isles, leaving a garrison of 300 
 MacDougals and Irishmen in the Castle of Dunaverty,"* on 
 the coast of Cantyre, two or three miles from the Mull — an 
 old castle of the MacDonalds, in which the Lord of the Isles 
 received and sheltered Eobert Bruce at the time when his 
 fortunes were at the lowest. 
 
 Leslie besieged the castle, and the garrison were 
 soon compelled to surrender for want of water. They 
 were butchered to a man ; the Kev. John Neaves, 
 Leslie's Chaplain, threatening him with all " the curses 
 which befel Saul for sparing the Amalekites," if he 
 spared the men of Dunaverty. 
 
 " Thus urged, 260 gallant soldiers were hurried into eter- 
 nity; while Argyle and the sanctimonious ruffian, Neaves, 
 walked together among the falling corpses, literally ankle- 
 deep in blood. 1 Now, Master J ohn,' said the godly Marquis, 
 turning with a sardonic grin to the preacher, ' for once you 
 have got your fill of blood.' "f 
 
 More than fifty years ago I saw the bones of some 
 
 * Grant, p. 331-2. 
 
 t lb. p. 332-3. 
 
123 
 
 of these noble fellows bleached white in the sands of 
 the sea-beach below the headland on which the old 
 castle stood. And thus perished, by a dastardly and 
 inhuman massacre, the last of Sir Alaster MacCoH's 
 heroic Irishmen (the Montrose Irish Brigade) in less 
 than two years after leaving their native shores. His 
 own short but brilliant career was now also approach- 
 ing its end. To escape the vengeance of Argyle, he 
 fled to Ireland about the same time that Montrose be- 
 came an exile in obedience to Charles's commands. In 
 less than a year and a-half after his return to Ireland 
 he was killed at the battle of Knock-na-noss (" the 
 Hill of Fawns "), near Kanturk, in the County Cork, 
 on the 13th of November, 1647. 
 
 The narrative I have just given of Sir Alaster's pro- 
 ceedings in the end of 1645 and beginning of 1646 
 conclusively disposes of the last charge preferred 
 against him — viz., that he at this time betrayed Mont- 
 rose, and refused to rejoin him in his present distress. 
 MacColl could not by possibility have rendered him 
 more valuable and efficient support than by occupying 
 Argyle's forces in the West Highlands, and drawing, 
 away Leslie to Cantyre, the extreme west, while Mont- 
 rose was zealously but vainly endeavouring to raise 
 an army among the Gordons and other Koyalists of 
 Aberdeenshire and the neighbouring eastern counties. 
 
 The following account of Sir Alaster's death is 
 quoted from the lamented and accomplished Miss 
 
124 
 
 Annie Huttons admirable translation of the confiden- 
 tial correspondence of Kinuccini with the Court of 
 Koine, during his residence in Ireland as Papal 
 Nuncio : — 
 
 " The two hostile armies approached each other on the 13th 
 November, 1647. The Catholic army consisted of 6,000 in- 
 fantry and 1,200 horse, and the English of 5,000 foot and 
 1,300 horse, nnder the command of Baron Inchiquin, while 
 our forces were led by Viscount Taaffe, with General Alex- 
 ander Macdonnell of Ulster as his lieutenant. The Catholics 
 were drawn up in the following manner. In front of the 
 right wing was MacDonnell with 3,000 infantry, composed of 
 Ulster and Connaught men, and the Irish Islanders [viz., 
 Highlanders], supported by Colonel Purcell, with two regi- 
 ments of cavalry. On the left wing was Lord Taaffe, with 
 nine Munster legions, to the number of 4,000 infantry and 
 two regiments of horse. In this order the battle was begun. 
 Incliiquin [the leader of the Parliamentarian army] had 
 placed the best part of his troops opposite to Macdonnell, 
 whom he greatly feared, and not without reason, as his 
 soldiers, after firing one or two volleys, threw away the 
 musket, and, seizing the sword, rushed upon the enemy with 
 such fury that they pursued for three miles, killing them as 
 they fled to the number of 2,000, without losing more than 
 five men, after which they took cannon, carts, and baggage, of 
 which they retained possession for a whole hour. Meantime, 
 on the other wing the one regiment commanded by Lord 
 Castleconnel fired but one volley, and then, with all the 
 Munster troops, fled in the most disgraceful manner, thro wing- 
 away their arms in their flight ; and, though the General cut 
 down some of the cowards with his own hand, he was unable 
 to keep them back ! Hence the cavalry also of the right 
 wing, which, under Purcell, had made their way bravely, on 
 hearing and seeing the flight of the infantry, abandoned then 
 
125 
 
 colonel, and fled. Their flight was so ignominious and so 
 rapid that Lord Inchiquin, after pursuing them a short way 
 and killing many, returned, and, with the rest of his army, 
 charged the victorious Catholic party, who, believing that the 
 victory was on their side, and were standing carelessly around 
 the enemy's cannon, when suddenly attacked could only de- 
 fend themselves in a disorderly manner, and fell to the num- 
 ber of 700. After a great slaughter of the enemy 3,000 escaped, 
 but with the loss of the cannon they had just captured. 
 General Alexander Macdonnell, who had separated himself a 
 little from his troops to see after a messenger whom he had 
 sent with an account of his proceedings to the other wing, 
 met, on his return, fourteen of the enemy's horse; refusing 
 quarter, he killed four of them, and, while parleying with 
 their captain, was treacherously stabbed from behind by a 
 soldier, and at once fell dead." 
 
 He is still remembered in the south of Ireland by a 
 very singular piece of music composed in his honour, 
 and remarkably expressive of "all the currents of a 
 heady fight." It was published by Mr. Bunting in 
 his last collection of Irish Melodies, under the title of 
 " McDonnell's March." His fame still lives in the 
 Highlands of Scotland also : — 
 
 " The memory of this great warrior is still revered in the 
 land of the Gael, where the peasants still sing, ' Oran do dh' 
 Alasdhair MacColla,' a song which was composed in his 
 honour by a female harper, Dorothea of Luing, when she saw 
 his galley, with the broad banner of Macdonald displayed, 
 sailing through the sound of Luing towards Ireland, the land 
 of his exile."* 
 
 * Grant, p. 333 
 
126 
 
 V. 
 
 Up to June, 1642, the aid contributed by England 
 and Scotland to the distressed Protestants of Ulster 
 consisted of 1,500 men sent by Charles in November, 
 1641, and 2,500 under Monroe, in April, 1642, an in- 
 stalment of the 10,000 promised by Scotland ; and be- 
 tween them the service they had performed consisted 
 in the recovery of Newry and the raising of the siege 
 of Coleraine ; and yet, unaided, the Ulster Protestants 
 in arms had now reduced the rebels to despair. 
 
 "Monroe," says the Rev. Dr. Leland {History of Ireland, 
 book 5, chap. 5, p. 176-7), " with an appearance of amity and 
 respect, visited the Earl [Lord Antrim] at his castle of Dun- 
 luce; was hospitably received; but at the conclusion of an 
 entertainment, gave the signal to his followers. The Earl was 
 made prisoner, his castle seized, and all his houses committed 
 to the custody of the Scottish forces." 
 
 This is Carte's disputed narrative : — 
 
 " Two months wasted in total inaction or the most frivolous 
 enterprises, revived the spirit of the rebels, recalled them from 
 their retreats, and enabled tliem once more to collect their 
 forces. The charge of opposing them now devolved on the 
 English forces of Ulster [that is, the English and Scotch 
 settlers], for the Scots [viz., Monroe's soldiers] were totally 
 employed in ravaging the adjacent districts, and exporting 
 vast herds of cattle into Scotland. Sir Phelim O'Nial ap- 
 peared once more at the head of an army, but was bravely 
 encountered by Sir Robert and Sir William Stewart, two 
 
127 
 
 English commanders. After a sharper action than had 
 hitherto been fought in Ulster, the rebels were driven to 
 flight with the loss of 500 slain, many wounded, and a num- 
 ber of prisoners. [This was the battle of Glenmaquin, already 
 mentioned.] It was proposed to prosecute this advantage, 
 but the English were distressed and necessitous, and Monroe 
 refused his assistance." 
 
 Dr. Lelaud continues : — 
 
 " This apparent horror of putting too speedy a conclusion 
 to the war must immediately have been attended with the 
 most pernicious consequences, had not the rebels been dis- 
 pirited by ill success, and in want of every necessary for the 
 prosecution of their enterprise. Such was their dejection, that 
 when Monroe, in the month of July, at length showed some 
 disposition to proceed more vigorously, the Irish Chieftains 
 held their council, and resolved to abandon a cause rendered 
 utterly hopeless by repeated defeats and disappointments, and 
 to fly to foreign countries from the rage of their victorious 
 enemy." 
 
 I desire to call especial attention to this perfectly 
 true account of the state of the struggle between the 
 Catholics and Protestants in Ulster in less than eio;ht 
 months from the commencement of the cavil war. In 
 less than six months after it the Irish were disgrace- 
 fully foiled at the siege of Drogheda ; and Dundalk, 
 Carlingford, Xewry, and Armagh, which had been 
 taken by them, were recovered from them ; and in 
 almost eveiy encounter with the Protestants in Ulster 
 they had been defeated with such extreme dispropor- 
 tion of loss of life on their part as would have been not 
 only disgraceful, but unintelligible, if they had been 
 
128 
 
 armed as their antagonists were. Bearing in mind 
 that the Ulster Protestants had as yet received no 
 external aid whatever, I hold this condition of things 
 to be perfectly inconsistent, not only with the prepos- 
 terous exaggerations of Clarendon and Temple, but 
 with any very considerable loss of life among the 
 Ulster Protestants capable of bearing arms. 
 
 This complete defeat of the insurgents was effected 
 by the posthumous valour of the 150,000 Protestants 
 massacred by Sir John Temple. Mr. Froude, indeed, 
 says:* — " The English Parliament being occupied with 
 fighting the King, the Scots sent a force (England pro- 
 viding the money) which gradually drove the rebels 
 out of Ulster." This is either gross ignorance or gross 
 misrepresentation. The strange inactivity of the 
 Scotch troops in Ulster is one of the most difficult to 
 comprehend and remarkable incidents of the war. I 
 can imagine no explanation of it but that it was 
 adopted in concert with the like conduct on the part 
 of Parsons and Boiiace. It admits of no doubt that a 
 policy of nursing the rebellion was pursued by them 
 at first for the purpose of improving the harvest of 
 confiscations which they hoped by and by to reap for 
 themselves and their friends. 
 
 Monroe arrived at Carrickfergus about the middle 
 of April, 1642, with 2,500 men. He immediately 
 recovered Newry from the rebels, and, marching 
 
 * English in Ireland, vol. i., p. 115. 
 
129 
 
 northwards, raised the siege of Coleraine, meeting no 
 resistance in either case. Except some vigorous cattle- 
 lifting, he may be said to have hibernated thereafter 
 till 1646, when he was disastrously defeated by Owen 
 Koe O'Neill in the battle of Benburb. If he had 
 acted with energy on his arrival in Ireland — joining 
 his troops to the Ulster Protestant force under Sir R. 
 and W. Stewart, the insurrection in the north would 
 have been stamped out at once; and very probably 
 Owen O'Neill would have declined to enlist in a cause 
 the utter defeat of which he would have learned from 
 his expatriated kinsmen. 
 
 In August, 1642, Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, 
 who had served with great distinction under Gustavus 
 Adolphus, arrived in Carrickfergus with a reinforce- 
 ment of 7,500 men. Leslie outdid Monroe. He 
 marched into Tyrone, and, rivalling the French king 
 who " marched up the hill, and then — marched down 
 again," returned to Carrickfergus, and soon after to 
 Scotland, having first truly predicted for Monroe the 
 fate that awaited him at Benburb four years later. 
 The conduct of Leslie and Monroe, and the tardy and 
 feeble efforts made by England and Scotland at this 
 time to avenge the slaughter of such a multitude of 
 their countrymen, induce me to entertain a suspicion 
 that the Puritan leaders did not give credit to Temple's 
 fabulous history. There is no doubt that the people 
 of England accepted it literally. 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 A graphic account of an incident not very creditable 
 to England, at a time when the Protestants were to the 
 Koman Catholics in that kingdom as forty to one,* is 
 given by the Eev. Joseph Lister, a Dissenting minister 
 in Yorkshire : — 
 
 " About this time did the rebellion in Ireland break out, 
 and many thousand Protestants, of all ages, sexes, and degrees, 
 were put to death with great inhumanity and cruelty ; and 
 great fear come upon the Protestants in England, those 
 villains giving out, that what they had done there was by 
 the King's commission, and that in a little time the English 
 Protestants (or heretics, as they called them) should drink of 
 the same cup ; and it was verily believed by many that it 
 would be so, if God should suffer it ; and oh, what fears and 
 tears, cries and prayers, night and day, was there then in 
 many places, and in my dear mother's house in particular ! I 
 was then about twelve or thirteen years of age, and though I 
 was afraid to be killed, yet was I weary of so much fasting 
 and praying, and longed to see those days and nights over. 
 I remember one public fast day (for godly ministers appointed 
 many, and kept them in their respective places), — Mr. Wales 
 kept many at Pudsey ; it was two miles from Bradford, and 
 thither my pious mother and all the family went constantly 
 upon those days ; I have known that holy Mr. Wales spend 
 six or seven hours in praying and preaching, and rarely go 
 out of the pulpit ; but sometimes he would intermit for one 
 quarter of an hour, while a few verses of a psalm were sung, 
 and then pray and preach again ; and oh ! what confession of 
 sin did he make ! what prayers, tears, and wrestling with God 
 was in that place in these days ! What tears and groans 
 were to be seen and heard in that chapel ! I am sure it was 
 a place of weepers. But that day, I say, which I am speak- 
 
 * Hume's History of England, vol. vi., p. 392. 
 
131 
 
 ing of, I think about three o'clock in the afternoon, a certain 
 man that I remember well (his name was John Sugden) came 
 and stood up in the chapel door, and cried out with a lament- 
 able voice : — ' Friend/ said he, ' we are all as good as dead 
 men, for the Irish rebels are coming ; they are come as far as 
 Eochdale, and Littlebrough, and the Balings, and will be at 
 Halifax and Bradford shortly/ He came, he said, out of pity 
 and good will, to give us notice. And having given this 
 alarm, away he ran towards Bradford again, where the same 
 report was spread about. Upon which the congregation was 
 all in confusion; some ran out, others wept, others fell to 
 talking to friends, and the Irish massacre being but lately 
 acted, and all circumstances put together, the people's hearts 
 failed with fear ; so that the Eev. Mr. Wales desired the con- 
 gregation to compose themselves as well as they could, while 
 he put himself and them into the hands of Almighty God by 
 prayer : and so he did, and so dismissed us. But oh ! what a 
 sad and sorrowful going home had we that evening, for we 
 must needs go to Bradford, and knew not but incarnate devils 
 and death would be there before us, and meet us there. 
 What sad and strange conjectures, or rather conclusions, will 
 surprise and fear make ! Methinks I shall never forget this 
 time. Well, we got home, and found friends and neighbours 
 in our case, and expecting the cut-throats coming. But at 
 last some few horsemen were prevailed with to go to Halifax, 
 to know how the case stood. They went with a great deal 
 of fear, but found matters better when they came there, it 
 proving only to be some Protestants that were escaping out 
 of Ireland for their lives into England; and this news we 
 received with great joy." 
 
 After six months' higgling between the English 
 and Scottish Parliaments, 2,500 men, under Robert 
 Monroe, were landed at Carrickfergus, in April, 1642, 
 to avenge the wholesale slaughter of their fellow- 
 
 9 
 
132 
 
 countrymen ; and five months later, Lord Leven landed 
 at the same place with 7,500 more, making up the 
 10,000 that Scotland had undertaken to furnish. 
 Elizabeth had sent 20,000 to subdue the rebel Earl of 
 Tyrone ; and a little before this time, England and 
 Scotland confronted one another on the banks of the 
 Tweed, with about 50,000 men, in a religious quarrel 
 involving no question of doctrine considered by either 
 party necessary to salvation — but matters relating to 
 the government of the church, and the colour, shape, 
 etc., of the garments in which the clergy should 
 officiate.* The Long Parliament enlisted 4,000 
 recruits for Lord Essex's army in London alone in 
 one day.t 
 
 Monroe arrived at Carrickfergus on the 15 th of 
 April, 1642, and set out on the 27th for the recovery 
 of Newry. The resistance offered to him on the way 
 was quite contemptible. At Kilwarlin Woods, near 
 Banbridge, he says he killed 152 men with a loss to 
 himself of two men. It follows that the Irish fought, 
 
 * " The grievances which tended " says Hume {History of England, 
 vol. vi., p. 389) u chiefly to inflame the Parliament and nation, especially 
 the latter, were the surplice, the rails placed about the altar, the bows 
 exacted on approaching it, the t Liturgy, the breach of the Sabbath, 
 embroidered copes, lawn sleeves, the use of the ring in marriage, and of 
 the cross in baptism. On account of these were both parties contented 
 to throw the government into such violent convulsions ; and to the dis- 
 grace of that age and this island, it must be acknowledged that the 
 disorders in Scotland entirely, and those in England mostly, proceeded 
 from so mean and contemptible an origin." 
 
 f Hume, vol. vi., p. 490. 
 
133 
 
 as indeed Colonel Sir James Turner informs us they 
 did, "with half-pikes, swords, and daggers, which they 
 call skeens," against muskets. The Eev. Mr. Clogy 
 also, who was living among the rebels in Cavan, states, 
 when relating the failure of the plan to seize the Castle 
 of Dublin, in which arms and ammunition to a great 
 amount had been collected : — 
 
 "All their strength and hope lay in the surprisal of this 
 place, without which they had neither arms for horse or foot, 
 nor ammunition. For in the Earl of Strafford's time, no man 
 in Ireland of whatsoever degree could have above lOlbs. 
 weight of powder at once, and that out of the Castle, by order 
 in writing."* 
 
 On the 1st of May, Monroe took an island in 
 Loughbrickland. " On the way there," says Monroe, 
 " some prisoners taken were hanged thereafter," and 
 the whole sixty taken in the island u were put to the 
 sword, and our prisoners, which they had, released." 
 Newry was taken with little trouble. Sir James 
 Turner, an eye-witness, speaking of the prisoners 
 taken in the castle, says : — 
 
 " Most of them, with many merchands and tradesmen of 
 the towne, who had not been in the castle, were carried to 
 the bridge and butchered to death — some by shooting, some 
 by hanging, and some by drowning, without any legal pro- 
 cesse. Lord Conway was the principal actor. Our sojors 
 thought they might do as much anywhere else, and so runne 
 upon 150 women or thereby, who had got together in a 
 
 * Memoirs, p. 170. 
 
134 
 
 place below the bridge, whom they resolved to massacre by 
 killing and drowning. Just at that time was I speaking with 
 Monroe ; but seeing afare off what a game these godless 
 rogues intended to play, I got a horseback and galloped to 
 them with my pistol in my hand ; but before I got at them 
 they had despatched about a dozen ; the rest I saved." 
 
 Soon after, Monroe, having left a garrison in 
 Newry, returned to Carrickfergus, and, after raising 
 the siege of Coleraine, took up the trade of cattle- 
 lifting, which he prosecuted with distinguished success, 
 while the Plantation Protestants were reducing the 
 rebels to despair. At this critical time the spirits 
 of the insurgents were revived, and a resolution was 
 formed to renew the struggle, in consequence of the 
 arrival of Owen Koe O'Neill at Castle Doe, in the 
 north of Donegal, with a considerable supply of arms 
 and ammunition, and 100 trained Irish officers drawn 
 from the armies of France and Spain. A force was 
 immediately despatched to escort him to Charlemont. 
 Sir Phelim O'Neill was superseded, and Owen Koe was 
 unanimously chosen as their leader, and the represen- 
 tative of the chiefs of his name, the ancient Princes of 
 Ulster. 
 
 " Owen O'Neill was an officer who had seen much active 
 service on the Continent, and, in addition to his experience as 
 a soldier, he possessed in an eminent degree that discernment 
 and foresight that enabled him to see the errors of the past, 
 and to prepare for the future. While he did everything to 
 raise the spirit of the insurgents, he not only spoke strongly 
 in detestation of their previous barbarities and excesses, but 
 
135 
 
 he took all opportunities of disgracing and punishing those 
 who had taken a prominent part in them. He is even said 
 to have burnt the houses of some who were notoriously guilty, 
 and to have declared openly that he would rather join with 
 the English than suffer such wretches to escape punishment"* 
 
 He had lately acquired high fame by his defence of 
 Arras, besieged by 34,000 French troops, and was cer- 
 tainly a brave, cautious, and skilful soldier; but he 
 unfortunately attached himself to the faction of the 
 Papal Xuncio Einuccini, who by his ignorance and in- 
 credible presumption, even in disregard of his instruc- 
 tions from the Court of Eome, largely contributed by 
 his mischievous proceedings to the result of this war, 
 so disastrous to the Eoman Catholics. Immediately 
 on conclusion of the truce in 1646, between Ormond 
 and the Eoman Catholic Confederates, he declared 
 violently against it — assumed, in fact, the political and 
 military management of the affairs of Ireland into his 
 own hands, upset the government established by the 
 Kilkenny Confederates, and ordered Owen O'Neill to 
 march to Kilkenny to support him. Instead of being 
 sent back to his Archbishopric of Fernio at an hours 
 notice, he was zealously supported by the Celtic Irish, 
 and obeyed by Owen O'Xeill. 
 
 This leader had just given a crushing defeat to 
 the Parliamentarians under Monroe at Benburb, near 
 Armagh. Monroe, whose forces had been much 
 diminished by detachments he had been obliged to 
 
 * Wright's HUtorj of Ireland, book v., chap, vi., p. 709. 
 
136 
 
 send to Scotland to check the alarming progress of 
 Montrose in that country, marched from Carrickfergus 
 with about 5,000 men to attack O'Neill at the head 
 of about an equal force. Monroe's army was almost 
 annihilated, and O'Neill's victory had the immediate 
 effect of swelling his army from 5,000 to 10,000 men. 
 He had the fairest prospect, if he had been allowed to 
 follow up his success, of driving the Scottish Puritan 
 army out of Ireland. 
 
 On hearing of these insane proceedings, with what 
 pious exultation must Cromwell have exclaimed — 
 " The Lord has delivered them into my hand I" 
 
 I rejoice that the object with which I write does not 
 require me to enter into the particulars of the history 
 of this war. It affords a glaring example of the 
 political fatuity which, times without number, brought 
 disaster on the Celtic Irish in their contests with or 
 rebellions against the English. I have quoted already 
 the proverb that "Experience keeps a dear school, 
 but fools will learn at no other ;" but I maintain that 
 he is no fool who does learn at that school. Dame 
 Experience has taught the Irish by a thousand ex- 
 amples that political success imperatively demands 
 steady political union ; but they have not learned the 
 lesson to this day. The Home Eulers are already 
 split into hostile factions. 
 
 In the beginning of the Civil War of 1641 in Ireland 
 there were four well-marked parties. (1) The Par- 
 
137 
 
 liamentarians, viz. — the Scottish Puritan forces under 
 Leslie and Monroe, and their allies, the Ulster Pro- 
 testants ; (2) The Protestant loyalists under Ormond ; 
 (3) The Anglo-Irish Eoman Catholic Lords of the 
 Pale ; (4) The Celtic-Irish Eoman Catholics. By far 
 the weakest of these four parties in the commencement 
 of the war was the Puritan faction. By a steady 
 union among the other three parties in support of 
 Charles I., in which they could all have concurred, 
 they could easily and certainly have crushed the 
 Puritans, and driven Monroe out of Ireland. But 
 they could never cordially unite ; and as the war pro- 
 ceeds it becomes day by day plainer that the gradually 
 increasing strength and dogged determination of the 
 Parliamentarians, and the insane dissensions among 
 the other three parties, must inevitably end in the 
 triumph of the first, and the utter niin of the rest. 
 With what cruelty that ruin was inflicted may be 
 learned by the perusal of Mr. Prendergast's able and 
 touching history of the Cromwellian settlement. 
 What would have been thought in England and Scot- 
 land, if, on the conclusion of the civil war, every Cava- 
 lier who had not exhibited " constant good will " 
 towards the Parliament, and who possessed an acre of 
 land, had been driven to the mountains of Wales or 
 the Grampians — some, the true-hearted Eoyalists, to 
 starve : others, in proportion to the mildness of their 
 malignancy, being reprised with mountain land for a 
 
138 
 
 portion of the rich acres for the loss of which they 
 were deemed to be entitled to compensation 1 Such, 
 however, was the terrible award inflicted upon the 
 wretched landholders of Ireland. 
 
 I have already stated that in the beginning of the 
 Civil War of 1641 there were many murders com- 
 mitted by the Irish in Ulster (including those who 
 died from exposure to the weather without food and 
 clothing), and even some massacres of a few defence- 
 less persons here and there by terrified and vindictive 
 mobs ; but I altogether deny that there was anything 
 remotely approaching a general massacre such as is 
 described by Clarendon and Temple. I neither excuse 
 nor palliate the murder or massacre of women, child- 
 ren, or old men, no matter when, where, or by whom 
 perpetrated. They are utterly inexcusable, and 
 equally abhorrent to natural humanity and Christian 
 principle. But there are degrees in inexcusableness ; 
 and I assert, roundly and without qualification, that 
 the English barbarities of this kind perpetrated in 
 Ireland were much greater, more cruel, and more 
 inexcusable than those for which the Irish were re- 
 sponsible. The murders and massacres by the Irish 
 were almost always, as I have said, pepetrated by 
 mobs, and the Koman Catholic gentry and the Kil- 
 kenny provisional government uniformly exerted 
 themselves to prevent them ; whereas the English 
 murders and massacres were usually perpetrated by 
 
139 
 
 the organized forces of the Government, or even by 
 direct order of the Government itself or its officers, 
 as when Ormond was commissioned by Parsons and 
 Borlace to drive the rebels from a station a few miles 
 from Dublin, his orders were " to burn and destroy 
 their haunts, and to kill all the inhabitants capable of 
 bearing arms," and when (as we are informed by Dr. 
 Borlace, whose history of these transactions was written 
 in defence of his near relative the Lord Justice) Sir 
 W. Cole's regiment killed 2,500 rebels in battle, but 
 besides " starved and famished of the vulgar sort, 
 7,000." 
 
 And here let me warn my Saxon brethren of 
 England, and my " brither Scots," that it will not 
 redound to their credit for comparative humanity to 
 contrast their murders and massacres in Ireland with 
 those perpetrated by the Irish upon them. I would 
 gladly have avoided this subject, but Mr. Froude's 
 slanders compel me to expose his ignorance and care- 
 lessness. While he and almost every Protestant his- 
 torian who treats of this period continue to quote and 
 credit Temple's slanders, I will not consent to listen in 
 silence — " I will not undergo their sneaps without 
 reply." I could easily set out a terrible array of 
 Saxon atrocities in Ireland ; but I will here mention 
 only two massacres, which I produce not only on 
 account of their magnitude, but because I believe the 
 reader will be startled by their being quoted as at all 
 
140 
 
 belonging to the category of massacre. I allude to the 
 war for the extermination of the elder branch of the 
 FitzGeralds in Munster, and Mountjoy's war against 
 Hugh O'Neill in Ulster, both in the latter days of 
 Elizabeth. I have already recounted the horrors 
 of these wars on the authority of Englishmen, eye- 
 witnesses of what they record. " Absurd !" I think 
 I hear Mr. Froude exclaim ; " these were legitimate 
 wars, prosecuted against notorious and ungrateful 
 rebels." I offer no objection to the slaughter of any 
 number of rebels in the field. That is all fair ; but I 
 insist that all the women, children, and old men who 
 were starved to death as the necessary and deliberately 
 intended result of the manner in which these wars 
 were carried on, tuere massacred, and that in a far 
 more cruel way than if the victim had been despatched 
 in the way proposed by another savage : — 
 
 " Batter his scull, or paunch him with a stake, 
 Or cut his weasand with a knife." 
 
 I have witnessed, in our miserable days of famine, 
 death by starvation, and know well how infinitely the 
 sudden death by sword or knife is preferable to the 
 lingering torture of death by famine. The gush of 
 blood that follows the stroke of the sword, or the spat- 
 tered brain, shocks and revolts ; but it requires little 
 reflection to conclude how beyond measure more 
 dreadful to the sufferer is the lingering death. The 
 
HI 
 
 number of victims, too, must have come near the 
 fabulous number (Temple's 150,000) slain in the first 
 two months of the rebellion by the Ulster Celts of 
 1641. The cattle of the peasantry were driven to the 
 camp, food of every kind was carried off, or, if it could 
 not be carried off, was burnt, and the standing crops 
 reaped, the sword (by what our English critics, with a 
 sneer in the sleeve, would describe as a practical Irish 
 bull) being turned into the reaping-hook. The 
 soldiers were sent into the fields with orders to cut off 
 the ears of the growing crops with their swords. Let 
 any reader who doubts the truth of what I have just 
 written, revert to what I have related respecting these 
 wars on the authority of the Poet Spencer, and Fynes 
 Moryson, the private Secretary of Mountjoy, and of 
 Mountjoy himself. 
 
 " The horrid accounts/' says Dr. Leland,* " of famine and 
 distress in those parts of Ireland most exposed to the calami- 
 ties of war, can scarcely be suspected of falsehood or exagger- 
 ation, when we consider the effects of these civil commotions 
 in the very city of Dublin. I have seen an account of the 
 rates of provisions sold in Dublin in the year 1602 [towards 
 the end of Mountjoy's war], authenticated by the signature of 
 John Tirrell, Mayor, by which it appears that 'wheat had 
 risen from 36 shillings to £9 the quarter ; barley malt, from 
 10 shillings to 43 shillings the barrel ; oat malt, from 5 shil- 
 lings to 22 shillings the barrel ; pease, from 5 shillings to 40 
 shillings the peck; oats, from 3 shillings and 4 pence to 20 
 shillings the barrel ; beef, from 26 shillings and 8 pence to 8 
 
 * History of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 442. 
 
142 
 
 pounds the carcase ; mutton, from 3 shillings to 26 shillings 
 the carcase; veal, from 10 shillings to 29 shillings the carcase; 
 a lamb, from 12 pence to 6 shillings ; a pork, from 8 pence to 
 30 shillings." 
 
 Between 1604 and 1641 three men occupied, to the 
 calamity of Ireland, the post of chief governor of the 
 country — Chichester, Strafford, and Parsons. I need 
 not say more than I have said above respecting the 
 two last. Sir Arthur Chichester was Lord Deputy for 
 eleven years. His virtues may be seen recorded as 
 somewhat superhuman on his tomb in Carrickfergus 
 Church ; and it is true that his rule was far less per- 
 nicious to Ireland than Strafford's or Parsons'. He 
 gives an account, however, of a military expedition he 
 made from Carrickfergus to Dungannon, on which, he 
 himself relates that, as he marched along Lough Neagh, 
 he killed every living thing he met ; and he deliber- 
 ately recommends the starvation of the people as 
 preferable to fire and sword, which work too slowly 
 for the purpose of extirpating the Irish enemy. 
 
 Within a year of the outbreak of the war, a legisla- 
 tive and governing body was established at Kilkenny, 
 which conducted its affairs, the circumstances con- 
 sidered, with surprising wisdom and moderation. A 
 meeting of the Eoman Catholic clergy at Kells was 
 soon followed by a General Synod held at Kilkenny, 
 which was joined by the Eoman Catholic nobility of 
 the town and neighbourhood, and such others as came 
 
143 
 
 to Kilkenny to aid in the formation of a government 
 for the country. One of their first acts was the framing 
 of a deed of association, afterwards adopted by " The 
 General Assembly of the Confederate Catholics of 
 Ireland," of which the following is a copy : — 
 
 "I, A.B., do in the presence of Almighty God, and all the 
 saints and angels in heaven, promise, vow, swear, and protest 
 to maintain and defend, as far as I may, with my life, power, 
 and estate, the public and free exercise of the true Eoman 
 Catholic religion, against all persons that shall oppose the 
 same. I further swear that I will bear faith and allegiance 
 to our sovereign lord King Charles, his heirs and successors ; 
 and that I will defend him and them, as far as I may, with 
 my life, power, and estate, against all such persons as shall 
 attempt anything against their royal persons, honors, estates, 
 and dignities ; and against all such as shall directly or in- 
 directly endeavour to suppress their royal prerogatives, or do 
 any act or acts contrary to the regal government ; as also the 
 power and privileges of parliament, the lawful rights and 
 privileges of the subjects, and every person that makes this 
 vow, oath, and protestation, in whatever he shall do in the 
 lawful pursuance of the same. And to my power, as far as I 
 may, I will oppose, and by all ways and means endeavour to 
 bring to condign punishment, even to the loss of life, liberty, 
 and estate, all such as shall either by force, practice, councells, 
 plots, conspiracies, or otherwise, attempt anything to the con- 
 trary of any article, clause, or anything in this present vow, 
 oath, or protestation, contained. So help me God."* 
 
 Mr. Froude and numerous other writers assert that 
 the Irish, above everything else, sought at this time to 
 shake off their connection with England. Nothing 
 
 * Borlase: History of the Irish Rebellion, fol. 74. 
 
144 
 
 can be wider of the truth, till near the end of the war, 
 when they were brought to the verge of utter ruin by 
 Cromwell ; then, indeed, they were willing, in their 
 despair, to have recourse to any saviour who could 
 stand between them and impending destruction. Let 
 the reader learn from Mr. Prendergast's Cromwell tan 
 Settlement what reason the prostrated Irish Eoman 
 Catholics had to dread that destruction. The uniform 
 language of the Irish towards Charles, for the first 
 eight or nine years of the war, was that of subjects 
 devotedly loyal. The Puritans of the Long Parliament, 
 indeed, often rivalled them in professions ; but these 
 were shameful and false lip-homage. The Irish con- 
 firmed the truth of their professions to a King who 
 had cruelly wronged them, At the time of the cessa- 
 tion of hostilities in 1643, the Catholic Confederates 
 presented £30,000 to Charles, a large sum considering 
 their poverty — half of which, because of then poverty, 
 they stipulated should be contributed in cattle. The 
 truce enabled Ormond to send over to Chester 3,500 
 men in aid of the King ; and at the same time Inchi- 
 quin sent over some regiments unoler Lord Dungarvan, 
 which took part in the siege of Gloucester.* 
 
 In August, 1644, they provided vessels to transport 
 2,000 men to join Montrose in the Highlands of Scot- 
 land. The men had been raised, indeed, and equipped 
 by Lord Antrim ; but the Confederate government 
 
 * Wright's History of Ireland, vol. ii., pp. 1, 2. 
 
145 
 
 approved of the important aid intended for the royal 
 cause, and the transports were furnished by them. 
 
 Again, at the time of the peace in 1646, the Catholic 
 Confederates undertook to send into England 10,000 
 men under the Earl of Glamorgan, in support of 
 Charles ; but which, owing to circumstances over 
 which they had no control, were not sent. They en- 
 gaged to send 6,000 men by the 1st of April, and 4,000 
 more by the 1st of May. But on the 5th of that month 
 Charles surrendered himself to the Scots, with whom 
 he remained a prisoner till they sold him to similar 
 imprisonment to the Parliament — in which condition 
 he remained, with the exception of a few hours after 
 his escape from Hampton Court, till his fetters were 
 struck off by the hand of death. After his surrender 
 to the Scots all aid from Ireland was impossible. 
 
 The Nuncio Einuccini, a witness above suspicion 
 in this matter, writing in cipher to Cardinal Pamphili, 
 says : — 
 
 " Your Eminence will see that the first clause of the oath 
 taken in this Assembly is fealty to the King, and this all the 
 bishops took without hesitation. This point is so warmly 
 insisted upon by everyone, the clergy included, that a Nuncio 
 could not in any wise oppose it without giving rise to a sus- 
 picion that his object here was not simply that of his embassy; 
 which the ill-affected have frequently, even without this 
 reason, insinuated in my case. Therefore I took care from 
 the first in nowise to oppose their professions of loyalty, and 
 as I found the proposal still pending for sending 10,000 
 soldiers to the King, I put in a few words to urge them to do 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 so ; saying that they should uphold and assist the King, 
 prove themselves good subjects/' etc.* 
 
 Language of perfectly similar import is frequently 
 used by the Nuncio in his confidential communications 
 to the court of Kome in earlier letters. 
 
 The supreme governing and legislative body was 
 constituted on the model of the British Parliament. 
 There was a sort of House of Lords, and a House of 
 Commons elected by the towns and counties, by whom 
 an executive was created, consisting of twenty-four 
 members appointed by the legislative body, and styled 
 the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics of 
 Ireland. Persons were appointed in the counties like 
 justices of the peace, to decide minor cases, from whom 
 an appeal lay to bodies constituted for similar purposes, 
 empowered to deal with more important cases for the 
 provinces, and from whom an appeal lay to the 
 Supreme Council. Till its vitals were disordered and 
 disorganised by the insane dissensions of the various 
 factions, the proceedings of this Parliament will com- 
 pare favourably with those of any other assembly 
 convened under similar circumstances. 
 
 " They began," says Cooke Taylor, " with sanctioning the 
 war which had been undertaken 'against sectaries and Puri- 
 tans, for the defence of the Catholic religion, the prerogative 
 of the King, the honour and safety of the Queen and royal 
 issue, the preservation of the rights and liberties of Irishmen, 
 
 * The Embassy in Ireland of Monsignor G. B. Rinuccini : Miss Annie 
 Hntton's transition, p. 259. 
 
L47 
 
 and the lives and fortunes of the Confederates,' as just and 
 necessary. They declare that no order of the King, whom 
 they very properly regarded as an unwilling instrument in 
 the hands of their enemies, should be obeyed, until they were 
 certified by their own agents of his real intentions. They 
 directed that an oath of association should be taken by all the 
 members of the confederacy, and that no distinction should 
 be made between the Old and New Irish. They denounce the 
 heaviest censures of the church on those who remain neutral 
 in the contest ; and prohibit, under pain of excommunication, 
 any injury to a Protestant who w T as not an adversary to their 
 cause. They direct that exact registers should be kept of all 
 murders and cruelties committed by the Puritans, in the 
 several provinces, but prohibit retaliation under the severest 
 penalties. They ordain that provincial assemblies, composed 
 of laity and clergy, should be formed for local government, but 
 that the chief authority should be lodged with a national 
 council, to which the others should be subordinate. There 
 were some other regulations of minor importance; but the 
 above articles contain the substance of the ordinances pub- 
 lished by the Catholic clergy ; and we can discover in them no 
 trace of the bigotry and persecuting spirit vulgarly attributed 
 to that much-calumniated body.'"* 
 
 Soon after the truce agreed upon by Ormond and 
 the Confederate Catholics in 1643, two deputations 
 waited upon Charles in Oxford — one representing the 
 views and demands of the Confederates, the other those 
 of the Protestants of Dublin. The contrast between 
 the requirements of the two deputations is both curious 
 and instructive. The Catholics claimed the freedom 
 of their religion, and the repeal of the Penal Laws, the 
 
 * Civil Wars of Ireland, vol. i., p. 286. Edinburgh : 1831. 
 
 10* 
 
148 
 
 summoning of a free parliament, and the suspension of 
 Poyniugs's Law, seminaries for the education of Koman 
 Catholic priests and lawyers, an act of amnesty in 
 favour of the insurgents, and the reversal of their 
 attainders, exclusion from the Irish Parliament of all 
 who did not reside in the country and did not possess 
 Irish estates, an Act declaring the independence of the 
 Irish Parliament, and that no chief governor should 
 hold his office for more than three years (during which 
 time he should be incapable of acquiring new lands in 
 the country), inquiry by Parliament into all breaches 
 of quarter and inhuman acts committed by any party, 
 and exclusion of all persons guilty of such crimes from 
 the amnesty, and their punishment in due course of 
 law. All the important items of these demands have 
 been conceded by the free action of the enlightened 
 Imperial Parliaments of modern times. 
 
 The Protestant deputation, on the other hand, 
 demanded — 
 
 " The rigorous execution of all penal statutes against recu- 
 sants ; the immediate and total disarming of Catholics ; the 
 compelling them to repair all damages sustained by Protes- 
 tants ; the punishment of all offences committed by recusants, 
 without pardon or mitigation; the vesting of all estates 
 forfeited under the administration of Parsons, in the Crown ; 
 and after satisfaction had been made to such as claimed under 
 the Acts of Parliament, the distribution of the residue entirely 
 to British planters."* 
 
 * Cooke Taylor, vol. i., p. 294. 
 
149 
 
 " Previously, a parliament consisting almost entirely of par- 
 tisans of Parsons and Borlace had in 1642 resolved upon new 
 Penal Laws, as well as enforcing the old ones with the utmost 
 rigor, and talked with a puritanical hatred of Popery." * 
 
 Dr. Eeid, iu his History of the Presbyterian Church 
 in Ireland, gives in extenso a petition from the Ulster 
 Presbyterians setting forth under thirty-one heads the 
 grievances they suffer from the Catholics. One of 
 these is both ludicrous and melancholy: — 
 
 " 13. In many places of the land where Protestants are 
 forbidden and restrained [I have never heard on any other 
 authority of any such], Papists are permitted to keep schools; 
 to some whereof such multitudes of children and young men 
 do resort, that they may be esteemed rather universities, 
 teaching therein not only the tongues, but likewise the liberal 
 arts and sciences." 
 
 Assuredly "the force" of insolence and bigotry "can 
 no further go" than this. 
 
 Thus it is plain that the Confederate Catholics were 
 contending for exemption from intolerable grievances ; 
 and the Protestants, not only for the perpetuation of 
 the oppression of their countrymen, but for its aggra- 
 vation by new Penal Laws. In short, in this war the 
 Koman Catholics fought to recover their liberties and 
 property, and to secure their religion ; the Puritans to 
 confirm and extend the tyranny inflicted on Ireland 
 by centuries of misgovernment, and brought to perfec- 
 tion by Strafford. 
 
 * Wright's History of Ireland, vol. i., p. 718. 
 
150 
 
 The sentiment has often found expression in 
 England, — " How happy would it have been for 
 England if Ireland could have been sunk in the 
 Atlantic for twenty-four hours !" Too true. But 
 alas ! alas ! how greatly more happy for Ireland 
 itself would that fate have been from 1172 to 1829! 
 For six hundred and fifty years of cruel and unwise 
 misgovernment, "IJ empire des Anglais en Irlande, 
 depuis leur invasion de ce pays en 116 { J, jusqu a la 
 Jin du siecle dernier [1800] n'a ete qu'une tyrannie."* 
 This severe denunciation is the conclusion to which 
 every impartial Englishman, Scotsman, and Irish 
 Protestant, and every foreigner, without exception, 
 who studies Irish history, will come. Speaking of 
 De Beaumont's history, Mr. Lecky says : — 
 
 " For the whole subject of the Penal Laws, I would refer to 
 the most admirable ' Introduction Historique ' to the work 
 of Gustave De Beaumont, L'Irlande, Sociale, Politique, et 
 Beligieuse. Very few writers have ever studied Irish history 
 so accurately and so minutely as M. De Beaumont, and he 
 has brought to it the impartiality of a foreigner, and the 
 political insight and skill which might be expected from the 
 intimate friend and the faithful disciple of De Tocqueville."f 
 
 *Gnstave de Beaumont: E Irlande, Sociale, Politique, et Beligieuse, 
 5 th edition. Paris 1842, vol. i., p. 15. 
 
 f Lecky : England in the Eighteenth Century, vol i., p. '296, note i. 
 
151 
 
 VL 
 
 Several events occurred in 1646 which contributed 
 to hasten the termination of the war so ruinous to the 
 Irish Koman Catholics. The peace between Ormond 
 and the Kilkenny Confederates was concluded in 
 March ; Charles surrendered himself to the Scots in 
 May. The troops sent into Ireland by Scotland, and 
 paid by England, were disastrously defeated by Owen 
 Eoe O'Neill at Benburb, and Einuccini, encouraged by 
 this great victory and Owen Eoe's subservience to him, 
 took the reins of government into his own hands. 
 This presumptuous Italian had been about six months 
 in the country, and was consequently profoundly 
 ignorant in regard to the policy and measures neces- 
 sary to be adopted to promote its true interests, to 
 unite its various factions against the common enemy, 
 and to disentangle its perplexed and tangled affairs. 
 
 " Never had Ireland presented so miserable a scene of 
 inextricable confusion as at this moment. At least four in- 
 dependent governments had established a footing on its soil, 
 and were contending for sovereignty over the whole. The 
 Parliamentarians were strong in the north and south; the 
 Earl of Ormond ruled in Dublin, the Supreme Council at 
 Kilkenny, and the Papal Nuncio at Waterford."* 
 
 Such being the condition of affairs, Einuccini, by a 
 solemn decree, signed in his own name, appointed a 
 
 * Wright, vol. i., p. 48. 
 
152 
 
 new council for the government of the kingdom. He 
 was himself president, who in fact exercised sovereign 
 authority in all affairs of government, and his coun- 
 cillors were the Archbishop of Cashel, three bishops, 
 and eight laymen, of whom the Earl of Glamorgan, as 
 blind a bigot as himself, was one. In these proceed- 
 ings he received hearty support from the Celtic Irish. 
 
 Immediately after the battle of Benburb, when, if 
 O'Neill had followed up his victory, he could with 
 certainty have driven the remnant of the Scottish 
 troops out of Ireland, he marched his whole force to 
 Kilkenny, by orders of the Nuncio, to support him 
 against Ormond and the Confederates. 
 
 " The friars and monks had, from the very commencement, 
 been devoted to the cause of the Nuncio, and they preached 
 everywhere that the calamities which afflicted them arose 
 from the neglect of his advice, and the little regard shewn to 
 the interests of their holy religion. One of these incendiaries 
 had even the audacity to seize the colours of a regiment that 
 was marching by orders of the general, and to denounce dam- 
 nation against all who proceeded further. The officers remon- 
 strated indignantly, but the superstitious soldiers threw down 
 their arms and dispersed. The regular clergy by no means 
 joined in these excesses, but they found on this, as on other 
 occasions, that the mob is more easily led by the fanatics 
 of the several monastic orders than by their own parochial 
 ministers." * 
 
 From the date of the peace in 1646, to the end of 
 the war, by the surrender of Gal way on the 12th of 
 
 * Cooke Taylor, vol. ii., p. 42. 
 
153 
 
 May, 1652, the Parliamentarians had no more valuable 
 and efficient allies than Kinuccini, and after his de- 
 parture from Ireland in February, 1649, the Eoman 
 Catholic Bishops who succeeded to his office and 
 adopted a policy little less ruinous than his. The 
 troops, too, of the various factions afforded powerful 
 aid to the Parliamentarians by their insane dissensions, 
 continually thwarting and opposing one another, and 
 often being on the point of meeting each other in 
 actual conflict. Their idiotic dissensions were equiva- 
 lent to an army of Irish volunteers in aid of the 
 Parliament. During the whole of this period the 
 Irish were almost uniformly defeated by the Puritans. 
 The only very remarkable exception to this disgraceful 
 truth occurred at the siege of Clonmel by Cromwell 
 himself, where, as also at the siege of Kilkenny, he 
 learned that his atrocious policy of massacre at 
 Drogheda and Wexford was not so successful as he 
 expected it would be. 
 
 Clonmel was defended by Hugh O'Neill and some 
 1,500 of Owen Eoe's Ulster soldiers. Hugh was the 
 last of a series of four very remarkable and able men, 
 who played an important part in the history of their 
 country from the reign of Elizabeth to the time of this 
 siege. Cromwell had just taken the city of Kilkenny, 
 having granted the garrison honourable terms of 
 surrender. He complimented them on the gallant 
 defence they had made, and declared that but for the 
 
154 
 
 treachery of the civic authorities, he would have raised 
 the siege. At Clonmel O'Neill made a heroic defence, 
 till his last charge of powder was spent ; and he then 
 withdrew the remnant of his soldiers unobserved, by 
 night. The siege was undertaken early in April, 1650, 
 and a practicable breach having been quickly made, 
 the assault was ordered. 
 
 "The first attempt to storm was defeated with so much 
 slaughter that the infantry refused to advance a second time ; 
 and Cromwell was forced to appeal to the cavalry. Lieuten- 
 ant Henry Langley and several other officers of horse gallantly 
 volunteered; the private troopers followed the example of 
 their officers, and a second storming party was formed under 
 the command of Colonel Culin. The second assault was so 
 fierce that the Irish were driven from the breach ; but O'Neill 
 had by this time built a new wall at the head of the street 
 which the breach faced, and lined the adjacent houses with 
 musketeers. The assailants were unable to overcome this 
 new obstacle. Culin and several others fell. Langley's left 
 hand was cut off by a blow of a scythe, and the greater part 
 of the detachment was either killed or wounded. In these 
 two assaults Cromwell lost more than 2,000 of his best 
 soldiers. He would not venture on a third ; but changed 
 the siege into a blockade, and determined to wait the slow 
 effects of famine."* 
 
 These two examples afford evidence that the terror 
 excited by the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford, 
 which is put forward in miserable palliation of those 
 savage atrocities, did not quite answer by its success 
 Cromwell's anticipations. Upon the whole, however, 
 
 * Cooke Taylor, vol. ii., p. 38. 
 
155 
 
 the conduct of the Irish during this period affords a 
 most disgraceful exemplification of the proverb — 
 
 " Quern Deus vult perdere, prius dementat." 
 
 If any trading Irish patriot, who has not yet entered 
 the ra£-trap, disputes the truth of what I have here 
 just written, with pain and shame, I pledge myself to 
 produce chapter and verse in proof of every statement 
 I have made. 
 
 It may be safely assumed that the civil war would, 
 at all events, have ended in the certain victory of the 
 Long Parliament, having regard to the overwhelming 
 superiority of force of England and Scotland, and the 
 necessary division in Ireland between the Covenanting 
 Presbyterians of Ulster and the other three Irish 
 parties ; but if these had presented a firmly united 
 front to the enemy, and conducted the war with 
 mutual trust, bravery, and such leadership as Montrose 
 gave his Irish brigade, the peace that would have closed 
 the war would have been very different indeed from 
 the inhuman barbarity of the Cromwellian Settlement. 
 
 VII. 
 
 I now gladly return to the proper object of my 
 essay. I again request the special attention of the 
 
156 
 
 reader to the following facts. In July, 1638, Arch- 
 bishop Laud writes to Strafford : — 
 
 "The Scottish business is extream ill indeed, but what 
 will become of it God knows, but certainly no good, and his 
 Majesty hath been notoriously betrayed by some of them. 
 There is a speech here, that they have sent to know the 
 number of Scotchmen in Ulster; and that privately there 
 hath been a list taken of such as are able to bear arms, and 
 that they are found to be above 40 thousand in Ulster only. 
 This is a very private report, and perhaps false, but in such a 
 time as this I could not think it fit to conceal it from your 
 lordship, coming very casually to my ears." 
 
 This estimate, of course very loose, was made three 
 years before the massacre of 1641. In 1657, Major 
 Morgan, Member of Parliament for the County of 
 Wicklow, in a debate respecting the lands of the Lords 
 Clandeboy and Ards in the County of Down, stated 
 that " in the north the Scotch keep up an interest in 
 garb and all formalities, and are able to raise 40,000 
 fighting men at any time." These statements (though 
 of course far from accurate, together with the fact, 
 always to be borne carefully in mind when speculating 
 upon the Protestant population of Ulster after 1641, 
 viz., that there has never been any pretence at a second 
 Plantation of Ulster after the supposed extermination 
 of the men, women, and children of the first), are 
 utterly inconsistent with anything remotely approach- 
 ing to truth in the allegations of Clarendon and 
 Temple. Clarendon himself, in his short view of the 
 
157 
 
 state of Ireland, says: — "The Scots in Ulster were 
 very numerous and possessed considerable towns in 
 1648."* 
 
 The excellent Dr. Oliver Plunket, Eoman Catholic 
 Archbishop of Armagh, judicially murdered in 1681, 
 writes to Eome in 1673 as follows : — 
 
 " In the diocese of Down and Connor, as also in many other 
 dioceses, there is a large number of Presbyterians (who are 
 especially numerous in Ulster), of Anabaptists, and Quakers, 
 and hence these dioceses [viz., Eoman Catholic] are ex- 
 ceedingly poor. And it must here be remarked, that the 
 Presbyterians, who are an offshoot of Protestantism, are more 
 numerous than Catholics and Protestants [viz., Protestants of 
 the Established Church] together." 
 
 If Temple's calumny were true, Ulster ought to 
 have been by far the most Eoman Catholic province 
 of Ireland. It is, however, and has ever been since 
 the Plantation of Ulster, certainly by far the 
 most Protestant. It is believed that till the famine 
 of 1846-7, which fell more heavily on the Eoman 
 Catholics than on the Protestants, the former, in spite 
 of the Penal Laws, had been gaining on the latter. 
 Dr. Bourke, Eoman Catholic Bishop of Ossory, in his 
 Hibernia Dominicana (Brussels, 1762), gives the fol- 
 lowing account of the relative numbers of Protestants 
 and Eoman Catholics in each province : — 
 
 * Clarendon's Rebellion, vol. viii., p. 83. 
 
158 
 
 Nomina ProTinciaram. 
 
 Numerus 
 Proteetantinm. 
 
 Numeras 
 Papistarum. 
 
 Conacia (Connaught), 
 
 21,604 
 
 221,780 
 
 Lagenia (Leinster), 
 
 z<)3,08/ 
 
 447,916 
 
 Momomia (Munster), 
 
 115,130 
 
 482,044 
 
 Ultonia (Ulster), 
 
 360,630 
 
 158,028 
 
 The Four Provinces, 
 
 894,851 
 
 1,309,768 
 
 This also must be a rough estimate, at least so far as 
 the Protestant population is concerned. Such as it is, 
 however, it gives much the greatest comparative Pro- 
 testant population to Ulster. The following enumera- 
 tion from the Irish Census for 1861 may be received 
 as pretty near the truth : — 
 
 
 Ulster. 
 
 Connanght. 
 
 Leinster. 
 
 Munster. 
 
 Protestants of the 
 
 
 
 
 
 Established Church, 
 
 391,315 
 
 40,595 
 
 180,587 
 
 80,860 
 
 Presbyterians, 
 
 503,845 
 
 3,088 
 
 12,355 
 
 4,013 
 
 Protestants of other 
 
 
 
 
 
 persuasions, 
 
 52,473 
 
 3,429 
 
 12,140 
 
 8,609 
 
 Jews, 
 
 52 
 
 
 338 
 
 2 
 
 Roman Catholics, 
 
 966,613 
 
 886,023 
 
 1,252,553 
 
 1,420,076 
 
 Total, 
 
 1,914,298 
 
 933,136 
 
 1,457,973 
 
 1,513,560 
 
 From these figures we conclude that in 1861 the 
 per centage of Protestants to Roman Catholics was : — 
 
159 
 
 14*13 to 85*9 in Leinster ; 
 
 6-20 „ 93-8 „ Munster; 
 
 518 „ 94'8 „ Connaught; 
 49.50 „ 50-5 „ Ulster. 
 
 Thus in Ulster Protestants and Eoman Catholics were 
 nearly in equal numbers ; in all the other provinces 
 the Eoman Catholics were far more numerous than all 
 sects of Protestants together. 
 
 During a great part of last century a tourist in 
 Ulster would have found everywhere in the mountains 
 and bogs, the Celtic race, the Irish language, and the 
 Eoman Catholic religion ; and the arable land occupied 
 by men of English or Scotch blood, speaking English 
 or Scotch, and Protestants. Since then the Celts have 
 been slowly mixing with the Saxons, attracted espe- 
 cially to towns where any manufacture was taking 
 root. The Curate of Belfast in the end of last century 
 assured an old friend of mine that when he settled in 
 Belfast there were not in that town and the neigh- 
 bouring parish of Shankhill five Eoman Catholic 
 families ; there are now in the town upwards of 55,500 
 Eoman Catholics. 
 
 Immediately after the conclusion of the war a 
 commission was appointed to make inquiry respecting 
 the murders that had been committed during the 
 rebellion. The commissioners were officers of Crom- 
 well's army — Puritans, perhaps not over-exigent in 
 regard to the amount and kind of evidence sufficient 
 
160 
 
 for the conviction of a Papist. They, in fact, held 
 court-martials. Mr. Froude says : — 
 
 " The remnant of the Ulster murderers who had survived 
 the wars remained to be brought to late justice. A high 
 court of justice, under General Fleetwood, was held at Kil- 
 kenny, in the hall of the Assembly, to try them. Sir Phelim 
 O'Neill and 200 others were convicted and executed. All 
 the rest had been consumed in a war, the waste of life in 
 which, compared with the population of the country exposed 
 to its ravages, stands unparalleled in the annals of mankind."* 
 
 I hope Mr. Froude, when he wrote this, was 
 ignorant of the facts of the case. If not, this passage 
 is a marvel of scandalous disingenuousness. How 
 many of these two hundred and one murderers does 
 the reader suppose were Ulster murderers — mur- 
 derers of the Ulster massacre % Just one — not one 
 hundred, gentle reader, but the unit one — viz., 
 Sir Phelim O'Neill. The remaining two hundred 
 were murderers of Leinster, Munster, and Con- 
 naught, where there has never been the pretence 
 of a general massacre in this war. This strange but 
 certain fact ogives strong corroboration to the belief 
 that Temple's account of the Ulster massacre is an 
 outrageous exaggeration. We have all heard of the 
 Temple of Truth ; here we have the Temple of False- 
 hood. Mr. Froude must excuse me if I assure him, 
 with perfect truth, that the spirit who dictates such 
 garbled and calumnious histories as Temple's and his, 
 
 * English in Ireland, vol. i., pp. 12R-9. 
 
161 
 
 of this most deplorable epoch of Irish history, as little 
 resembles Thalia, the muse of faithful, truthful, and 
 impartial history, as the strumpet resembles the 
 honoured and chaste Roman matron — 
 
 " Chaste as the icicle 
 That's curdled by the frost from purest snow, 
 And hangs on Dian's temple." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 I have now, in conclusion, to invite my reader to 
 witness, under the guidance of the Rev. Mr. Clogy, 
 Rector of Cavan, the proceedings of the insurgents in 
 the County Cavan, one of the six forfeited counties, 
 during the first eight months of the war, throughout 
 which he resided near the centre of the county and in 
 the midst of the rebels. His testimony is given in his 
 most interesting life of his stepfather-in-law, Bishop 
 Bedell, a prelate of rare and truly apostolic virtues, 
 never surpassed, if even equalled, by those of any 
 other bishop of the Episcopal Protestant Church of 
 Ireland, except Bishop Berkeley — 
 
 " Manners with candour are to Benson given : 
 To Berkeley, ev'ry virtue under heaven." — Pope. 
 
 Bedell had procured the translation into the Irish 
 language, and the publication at his own expense, of 
 the Old Testament, and by his zealous but gentle and 
 tolerant advocacy of the Protestant faith, was by far 
 
 11 
 
162 
 
 the most dangerous opponent the Roman Catholic 
 priesthood had ever encountered in Ireland. He had 
 even made a convert of the brother of the Roman 
 Catholic Bishop of his diocese of Kilmore. In proof 
 that the Rev. Mr. Clogy is free from all taint of 
 partizanship in favour of Roman Catholics, I quote 
 the following fiery and shocking denunciation of them. 
 He has just given a copy of a Latin letter of Bedell to 
 the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kilmore, on which he 
 remarks : — 
 
 " Did ever Poly carpus of Smyrna, or Ignatius of Antioch, 
 or any other of the famous bishops and martyrs of the 
 Primitive Church, who had their Father's name written on 
 their foreheads — i.e., that made an open confession of the faith 
 of Christ crucified, come nearer to him who before Pontius 
 Pilate witnessed a good confession, and show a greater con- 
 tempt of the world, and of death itself, under the cruel 
 persecution of the pagans, than this our magnanimous 
 confessor and blessed martyr of Jesus declareth in this short 
 and pithy epistle, under the cruelty of bloody Papists ? whose 
 hatred of, and cruelty of all sorts against the people of 
 God doth as far exceed that of their elder brother, the pagan, 
 as they may find one day (if God be true) that the torments 
 of hell, and those everlasting burnings prepared for dogs, and 
 sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, 
 and for whosoever loveth and maketh a He (for Popery is 
 nothing else but a great and presumptuous he against the 
 true God and the truth of God contained in the Scriptures of 
 truth, and every particular of it), are above those of their 
 Popish purgatory; and they that follow him that was a 
 murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, 
 may justly expect to be ranged with him, and to suffer as 
 murderers, unless they repent of the works of their hands ; 
 
163 
 
 that worship devils and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, 
 and stone, and wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor 
 walk; and of their murders, of their sorceries, and of their 
 fornications, and of their thefts, nec turba deorum talis ut est 
 hodie." 
 
 Speaking in general terms of the beginning of the out- 
 break, Mr. Clogy describes the atrocities in terms quite 
 as strong as any other of the Protestant authorities ; but 
 it is remarkable that from beginning to end of his 
 memoir he does not mention one case of murder wit- 
 nessed by himself or any person on whose truthfulness 
 he could rely. This, indeed, affords only negative 
 evidence; but it is surely passing strange, if an average 
 of 1,800 murders weekly during the first two months 
 of the war (Temple's average) were being perpetrated 
 in this county, that no mention should be made of 
 them. One of the most noted massacres was said to 
 have been perpetrated at Belturbet, within about ten 
 miles of Cavan, of which he makes no mention, but 
 the accredited account of which mixes up the only too 
 probably true evidence as to the murders, with a 
 miracle, palpably false, that the bodies of the slain 
 came floating up the river against the stream some 
 days after the massacre, to testify their abhorrence of 
 the chief author of the massacre, who was standing on 
 the bridge of Belturbet. 
 
 " After a mass," says Mr. Clogy, " that bloody and unparal- 
 leled massacre commenced. And here I confess my frailty. 
 
 11* 
 
1G4 
 
 I am at a stand, like a man astonished, and like a man that 
 wine hath overcome ; how to write or express anything of it, 
 that is beyond all expression (that was written in such large 
 bloody characters in one instant, tanquam signo dato, through 
 all parts of the kingdom of Ireland) without tears of blood, or 
 a quis talia fando, or quis cladem illius noctis ( ubiq i Indus ubiq' 
 gemitus, et plurima mortis imago) ; or rather with Jeremiah, 
 quis dabit capiti meo lymphas, et oculis meis fontem aquarum, 
 ut defleam nodes atq' dies confossos filios populi mei. 
 One day's warning might have saved thousands of lives of 
 poor innocents that knew not the right hand from the left. 
 That bloody harlot, the mistress of witchcraft, was so drunk 
 with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of 
 Jesus, that she made no discovery of the design, as Delilah 
 did often to Sampson ere he lost his hair, but surprised us 
 (while our watchmen and sentinels were buried in sleep and 
 security, or wrangling together and sadly falling out upon the 
 main guard) with swift destruction, by rapine, fire, and 
 sword, without the sound of a trumpet or the alarms of war ; 
 destruction was cried, for the whole land was spoiled : 
 suddenly were our tents spoiled, and our curtains in a 
 moment ! . . . There were no people under heaven lived 
 in a more nourishing state and condition for peace and plenty 
 of all things desirable in this life, when on a sudden we were 
 turned out of house and hold, and stript of all outward enjoy- 
 ments, and left naked and bare in the winter, and on the 
 Sabbath day put to flight that had no place to flee to for 
 refuse. The land that a little before was like the Garden of 
 Eden was speedily turned into a desolate wilderness. Hor- 
 resco referens quod animus meminisse horret luduq' refugit. 
 We soon forgat prosperity when we fell into the hands of 
 brutish men and skilful to destroy. ! the multitude of 
 cries that went up to heaven that are joined with the loud 
 cries of the souls under the altar* — Rev. vi., 9, 10." 
 
 * Memoir by the Rev. Alexander Clogy, of Life of Bishop Bedell. 
 London, 1862, pp. 159-01. 
 
165 
 
 This vague declamatory denunciation does not in- 
 spire confidence that it is free from exaggeration, or 
 that the picture it presents is a copy from nature. 
 The naked truth required no exaggeration to create 
 both horror and pity. No doubt there were numerous 
 murders — perhaps some isolated massacres of some 
 dozens of English or Scotch by savages prompted by 
 " man's inhumanity to man/' and urged by hatred and 
 revenge ; but at all events there was a multitude of 
 refugees from every corner of the forfeited counties, of 
 whom the great majority, the women and children, 
 could have had no complicity in the crime which led 
 to their calamity, and who were now reduced in a 
 moment from a condition of comfort and affluence to 
 the last extremity of destitution, without raiment to 
 defend them against the wintry elements, and without 
 food to sustain them for the three or four days neces- 
 sary to enable them to reach the nearest city of refuge. 
 The barbarity of the Irish who drove them out under 
 such circumstances admits of no excuse, and they are 
 justly responsible for every death that occurred in con- 
 sequence of it before the fugitives reached their friends. 
 Even then their sufferings were not over. Thousands 
 perished after this by disease generated by the miseries 
 they had undergone, and want — the result of the 
 most disgraceful and criminal failure of England and 
 Scotland to furnish prompt and liberal support to 
 
166 
 
 the victims of their own cruel policy of wholesale 
 spoliation. 
 
 There were probably few of the Ulster planters into 
 whose thoughts it ever entered that they were not 
 justly and legitimately possessed of the lands assigned 
 to them by James. The spoliation of the Irish of the 
 forfeited counties was the crime of James and the two 
 nations, who heartily approved of the robbery, which 
 was at once to establish civility in a fourth part of 
 Ireland : England and Scotland were therefore bound, 
 in honor and conscience, to stand between the expelled 
 planters and the ruin brought upon them by the con- 
 sequences of the national sin. Their case was very 
 similar to that of the West Indian slave-holders, who 
 had been encouraged by successive governments, and 
 by public approval, in reducing to slavery such multi- 
 tudes of their fellow-creatures. Queen Elizabeth was 
 one of the earliest English slave-traders ; having 
 chartered on her own account, for that infamous traffic, 
 the Jesus of Lubec. Queen Anne's government, in 
 the treaty of peace of Utrecht, as the fruit of all 
 Marlborough's victories, demanded and received the 
 monopoly of the slave-trade. The noble and unparal- 
 leled act of generosity and justice by which the nation 
 acknowledged and expiated the national sin, and saved 
 from ruin the slave-holders, their accomplices, will be 
 recorded in history and redound to the signal honour 
 of the Empire to the end of time. In 1641 the 
 
167 
 
 national conscience was in deep sleep, and the 
 wretched fugitives, so far from being compensated for 
 their terrible losses, were not even provided by the 
 state with the means of present support, and of trans- 
 port to England or Scotland from the ports to which 
 they had fled. 
 
 Let us now turn to the testimony of the Eev. Mr. 
 Clogy as to what he witnessed with his own eyes 
 during the first eight months of the rebellion. He 
 testifies that the rebels, as has been already mentioned, 
 were unprovided with arms, and did not murder 
 during the first month after the outbreak, thus con- 
 tradicting himself : — 
 
 " All their strength and hope lay in the surprisal of this 
 place [the Castle of Dublin, where arms and ammunition for 
 10,000 men were in store], without which they had neither 
 arms for horse or foot, nor ammunition. For in the Earl of 
 Strafford's time no man in Ireland of whatsoever degree 
 could have above ten pounds weight of powder at once, and 
 that out of the Castle, by order in writing. . . . And for 
 a whole month's time, or thereabouts, they meddled not with 
 the Scots, though they had driven out all the English that 
 were in the fields or in unwalled villages; they had no resting 
 place ; as thinking too hazardous to engage two such potent, 
 nations at once, till they had first dispacht one." * 
 
 Mr. Clogy s account of the treatment Bishop Bedell 
 received from the insurgents is equally honourable to 
 them and to that most excellent man, and is in strange 
 
 ♦Clogy. pp. 170, 173. 
 
168 
 
 contrast with the merciless treatment of Roman 
 Catholic ecclesiastics when they fell into the hands 
 of the Puritans. "They never," says Cooke Taylor, 
 ' 'spared a priest;" and certain it is they very sel- 
 dom did so. A revolting instance of their barbarity 
 occurred a few years after this time. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Bishop of Ross had been taken 
 prisoner by Lord Broghill, a nobleman of somewhat 
 loose political principles, who had lately been enlisted by 
 Cromwell himself in the parliamentary ranks. Broghill 
 was in London on his way to join Charles II. at Breda, 
 when, to his astonishment, he was visited by a messenger 
 from Cromwell, who was desirous, the messenger said, 
 to know when his Lordship could receive him. Brog- 
 hill, in reply, said there certainly must be some mistake 
 with regard to him ; but on receiving the most positive 
 assurance that there could be none, he desired the 
 messenger to inform Cromwell that he would wait 
 upon him immediately. Cromwell, however, presented 
 himself at BroghilTs lodgings before he had time to get 
 ready for his proposed visit. Cromwell informed him 
 that the Council were well acquainted with his pro- 
 ceedings, and were about to order his arrest, but, at 
 Cromwell's urgent request, held back their order, to 
 afford him an opportunity of reasoning with his lord- 
 ship respecting his intention of joining Charles. The 
 result of the interview was that Broghill returned to 
 Ireland a strenuous supporter of the Parliament. He 
 
169 
 
 had just given a severe defeat to the Irish at the time 
 of the above-mentioned capture of the Koman Catholic 
 Bishop of Eoss. Near the field was a strong castle 
 held by the Irish. Broghill requested the Bishop to 
 persuade the garrison to surrender, promising him his 
 life if he succeeded. He was conveyed to the castle, 
 and summoning the defenders, exhorted them by their 
 duty to God, their religion, and their country, to hold 
 out to the last extremity against the enemy. The 
 ecclesiastical Eegulus was brought back to the camp, 
 and forthwith ordered by Broghill to be hanged. The 
 " ferocious piety " of the Puritans, as some one has 
 happily called it, which dictated this outrage, was as 
 disgraceful to the Protestants as the contrasted hu- 
 manity of the insurgents in their treatment of Bishop 
 Bedell was creditable to them. 
 
 As Cromwell piously attributes the glory of the 
 Drogheda massacre to God, Mr. Clogy is careful to 
 attribute the mercy of the rebels to the compulsion 
 exercised over them by an overruling Providence. 
 
 "And indeed," says he, "God was a little sanctuary to him, 
 and caused the enemy to entreat him well in the day of his 
 calamity, and the desolation of God's people ; for the Lord 
 protected him, and his family, and children, and servants, 
 from all personal violence ; and did so still the enemy and 
 avenger, that none was ever suffered to do his person any 
 harm, or to touch any of his for their hurt : he was mediis 
 tranquilhts in undis, as Noah in his ark ; as if that of the 
 Apostle had been immediately spoken to them : * And who is 
 he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is 
 
170 
 
 good ?' Or as if the slaughter-master had given special order 
 concerning him, as Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean destroyer, 
 did to Nebuzaradan concerning Jeremiah in like case. . . . 
 The rebels told him he should be the last Englishman they 
 would put out of Ireland. He was the only Englishman in 
 all the County Cavan that was permitted to stay in his own 
 roof. There was but little spare room in his castle, which 
 was no way fencible against the least violent assault, and the 
 poor stript people, that had a plenty of all earthly accommoda- 
 tion but a little before, were now content to lodge in the out- 
 buildings, in the church, or church-yard, in heaps of straw or 
 hay, and to feed upon boiled wheat or whatever the enemy 
 had left, that could not so suddenly consume so great plenty 
 as was everywhere to be found." * 
 
 And here the Bishop, his sons, and Mr. Clogy, with 
 the crowd of fugitives who had put themselves under 
 his protection, remained unmolested by the insurgents 
 till the 18th of December. In the meantime Bedell 
 had drawn up a remonstrance for the rebels to be laid 
 before the Lords Justices, setting forth their grievances, 
 and promising to lay down their arms on receiving 
 redress of them. If Parsons and Borlase, and their 
 brethren in iniquity in Dublin, had been desirous of 
 putting an end to the rebellion, this remonstrance 
 would have been eagerly received with favour ; but 
 their object was not " to seek peace and ensue it," but 
 to nurse the rebellion with a view to confiscations, and 
 their answer accordingly attained this object. About 
 this time the insurgents requested the Bishop to 
 
 * Clogy, pp. 179, 180, 181. 
 
171. 
 
 dismiss the fugitives under his protection ; and on his 
 refusal to do so — 
 
 " At last they resolved upon another speedy and inhuman 
 course, and tell him that though they loved and honoured 
 him above all the English that ever came into Ireland (be- 
 cause he had never done wrong to any, but good to many), 
 yet they had received strict orders from their Council of 
 State at Kilkenny (which was the metropolis of the rebels), 
 that if he would not put away the distressed people from him 
 they must immediately, without any more ado, take him 
 away from them."* 
 
 Accordingly they carry him, his sons, and Alexander 
 Clogy, prisoners to a castle on an island in Lough Erne, 
 the ruins of which are still standing, about two miles 
 from the Bishop's palace, Loughouter Castle, in which 
 a few years after Owen Roe O'Neill died, when on his 
 way to encounter Cromwell. Here Bedell was kept a 
 prisoner till 7th January, 1642. 
 
 " The young men were put in irons lest they should sur- 
 prise the fort at any time, for sometimes they would all be 
 drunk, and sometimes but one keeper left to look after six 
 prisoners. But God gave them such favour in the eyes of 
 the keeper of the prison (as Joseph of old) that he abated 
 much of the rigorous commands that were given him, and" 
 did ease them of their irons, and gave them leave to use 
 divine exercises of God's worship, as to pray, read, preach, 
 and sing songs of Zion in a strange land, as the three child- 
 ren, though in the next room the priest was exercising his 
 Babyionisli mass/'f 
 
 * Clogy, p. 204. t lb., p. 207. 
 
172 
 
 On the 7 th of the next month they were set at 
 liberty by an exchange of prisoners. Sir James Craig 
 and Sir Francis Hamilton, leaders of the Scots in 
 Cavan, had fortified themselves in two castles about a 
 mile distant from one another, and two miles from 
 Loughoughter Castle. A garrison of Scots and English 
 was formed in the castles, and huts and cabins erected 
 about them, covered with cow-hides. Here, after 
 remaining unmolested for a month or six weeks, they 
 were besieged by the rebels : — 
 
 "Whereupon they fix all their scythes upon long poles, 
 and being very scarce of ammunition (though they had guns 
 enough), they resolve to sally forth out of both their castles, 
 and to make a resolute assault upon the enemy's camp on a 
 frosty night ; which they did perform with such irresistible 
 courage and good success that they made such foul work and 
 havoc amongst their enemies that such persons as were not 
 cut in pieces or mangled with these terrible weapons were 
 either taken prisoners or forced to run away, and leave their 
 camp as it was. This valiant exploit and prosperous adven- 
 ture frighted the rebels so much (though they were ten to 
 one) that they never offered to besiege, them any more till the 
 15th of June following, all the country being entirely theirs, 
 saving these two small holds."* 
 
 Among the prisoners were some leaders of the rebels, 
 in exchange for whom the Bishop and his sons and Mr. 
 Clogy were liberated. Bedell retired to the house of 
 a minister named O'Sheridan, where he spent the short 
 remainder of his apostolic life peaceably, and died after 
 
 * Clogy, pp. 2U-15. 
 
173 
 
 a short illness, on the 7th of February, 1642. He had 
 desired that his remains should be interred beside his 
 wife's in the graveyard of Kilmore Cathedral, which 
 was now in possession of the Eoman Catholic Bishop, 
 to whom application had to be made to permit the 
 burial as desired. This prelate, who is represented by 
 Mr. Clogy as a sot, at first refused to permit the 
 burial of a heretic in his consecrated ground, but at 
 length was persuaded to give his consent. 
 
 "Minister Sheridan and I," says Mr. Clogy, "went to 
 Kilmore about my Lord's burial, to speak with the Popish 
 usurper, Bishop Swiney (as his name is so is he), who said to 
 us at first : — ' The churchyard was no more to be defiled with 
 heretics' bodies.' Thus did these barbarous, ungrateful mis- 
 creants requite this servant of the Lord evil for good, who 
 sought their welfare, and did them more good (even to the 
 hazard of his own quiet and reputation) than all that were 
 ever before him in that see. They would scarce allow him a 
 place to lay his head on when he was alive, and now they 
 will hardly allow a place for his dead body to he, as right 
 officers of that great city, which is spiritually called Sodom 
 and Egypt, where our Lord is daily crucified. ... So on 
 the 9th day of February, 1642, he was laid in his grave — 
 according to his desire in his last will and testament, hard by 
 his wife's coffin that had been buried there four years before. 
 The chief of the Irish rebels accompanied the corpse from Mr. 
 Sheridan's house to the churchyard of Kilmore in a great 
 solemnity, and desired Alexander Clogy, the minister of 
 Cavan, to perform the office for the dead (according to our 
 manner in former times), and promised not to interrupt in 
 the least ; but we being surrounded with armed men, esteemed 
 it more prudent to bury him as all the patriarchs, prophets, 
 Christ, and his Apostles, and all saints and martyrs in former 
 
174 
 
 ages were, than to attempt such office (and sacrifice for the 
 dead, as they call it), and needless at such a time in the 
 presence of those Egyptians. But instead thereof they gave 
 a volley of shot, and said with a loud voice, ' Bequiescat in 
 pace, ultimus Anglorum !* For they had told him at their 
 first rising that he should be the last Englishman that should 
 be put out of Ireland, because he was stiled by men of 
 understanding, ' Ultimus et Optimus Upiscoporum,.' "* 
 
 They thus paid this mark of honour to this excellent 
 man, the only one they knew how to offer, and such 
 as they would have paid at the obsequies of their own 
 chief. The Bishop's family remained at Mr. Sheridan's 
 house till June the 15th, 1642. Immediately before 
 this date, the Scots who held the two castles of which 
 we have spoken, came to terms with the insurgents, 
 stipulating that they should march out with some arms 
 and all their movable goods that they could carry 
 away with them by horse or cart towards Dublin. 
 
 "So on the 15th of June, 1642, in the eighth month after 
 the rebellion, we marched away, above 1,200 men, women, and 
 children, after they had eaten the cows' hides which had 
 covered their cabins and huts from Christmas till June. A 
 sad company of poor people we were, as ever was seen to- 
 gether ; some loaden with children on their backs, many with 
 two little ones in their arms, yet all rejoicing in the Lord for 
 our enlargement at last. About 2,000 rebels accompanied us 
 for our lifeguard, according to the articles of our agreement 
 which were written by Archdeacon Price, but now Archbishop 
 of Cashel. The Scots had about 300 horse, some of them 
 well appointed, for our guard also, under the conduct of Sir 
 
 * Clogy, pp. 229-31. 
 
Francis Hamilton and Sir Arthur Forbes. Major Bayley had 
 his foot company of Scots that lay at Cavan, and had made 
 their escape in the night to those two castles, with all their 
 arms, and the train-band with them. The country had 
 orders to bring provision for money, which they did in great 
 plenty."* 
 
 They set out on the 15th of June, and reached 
 Drogheda on the 22nd. Sir Henry Tichbourne, 
 governor of Drogheda, met and took them under his 
 protection, with a party of horse and foot, ten miles 
 from Drogheda. Their march was very leisurely, if 
 they were in dread of being murdered by the Irish 
 through whose districts they had to pass. On the 
 15th of June they marched seven miles; the 18th, 
 four miles ; the 19th, three miles ; rested on the 20th; 
 the 21st, six miles ; and on the 22nd they met Sir 
 Henry Tichbourne. 
 
 "The rebels that conducted us," says Mr. Clogy, "took 
 solemn leave of us, being sore afraid at the sight of our 
 English forces; they hasted away, having kept us seven 
 nights in the open fields, without anything over or under us, 
 but what each of us had about us ; yet they offered us no 
 violence, save in the night when our men were weary with 
 continual watchings they would steal away a good horse and 
 run off, but were very civil to us all the way, and many of 
 them wept at our parting from them that had lived so long 
 and peaceably amongst them, as if we had been one people 
 with them."f 
 
 I submit these statements of the Eev. Mr. Clogy, a 
 
 * Clogy, pp. 241-2. t lb., p. 243. 
 
176 
 
 man prejudiced even savagely against Irish Roman 
 Catholics, respecting what he witnessed with his own 
 eyes, without comment, that the reader may form his 
 own opinion as to how far they are, or are not, in 
 accordance with his introductory denunciations, and 
 with Sir John Temple's History. Mr. Clogy concludes 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Most of our poor pillaged company came towards Dublin, 
 a poor exhausted city of refuge, which was neither able to 
 lodge us, nor to relieve us with things necessary, thousands 
 dying every week, being pierced through for want of the 
 fruits of the earth, as is at large set forth in the book of Dr. 
 Jones, dean of Kilmore, who wrote the history of the horrid 
 rebellion ; as also by Sir John Temple, a worthy and honour- 
 able privy councillor, before and after that calamity." 
 
 I repeat that I hold England and Scotland guilty of 
 every death that took place under these circumstances 
 by "want of the fruits of the earth," after the fugitives 
 entered the walls of Dublin. 
 
 I have already admitted that, considering the posi- 
 tion of Sir John Temple as Master of the Eolls and 
 Privy Councillor, and his residence in Ireland during the 
 civil war in Ireland, from 1641 to 1652, nothing short 
 of the most stringent evidence contradictory of his 
 statements could justify our rejection of them. Such 
 contradictory evidence, however, studiously taken, to 
 avoid cavil, from Protestant authorities, has been set 
 forth in the preceding narrative. I think it advisable 
 
* 
 
 177 
 
 to refresh the reader's memory by summarising it as 
 follows : — 
 
 1. The statements of Lords Justices Parsons and 
 Borlase, laid before the Long Parliament on the 1st 
 December, 16-11, and Temple's letter to Charles I., 
 dated 12th December, 1641, describing horrible 
 murders and atrocities then perpetrated by the Ulster 
 insurgents, are proved to be absolutely false by the 
 proclamation of the same Lords Justices, dated 23rd 
 December, 1641 — the precise time, two months after 
 the outbreak, when, according to Sir John Temple, the 
 whole Protestant population of Ulster had been cut off 
 
 2. Archbishop Laud, in a letter to Strafford, dated 
 July, 1638, states that he had been informed that the 
 Ulster Protestants were able at that time to produce 
 40,000 righting men. Major Morgan, Member of Par- 
 liament for the County of Wicklow, makes exactly the 
 same statement in a speech in the House of Commons ; 
 and Lord Clarendon himself states that in 1648 "the 
 Scots in Ulster were very numerous and possessed 
 considerable towns." No pretence of a second planta- 
 tion of Ulster, either before or since then, has ever been 
 advanced. 
 
 3. The war was vigorously prosecuted for some 
 months in Ulster with nearly uniform defeat of the 
 Eoman Catholics, and with extreme excess of loss of 
 life on their part. Their exceptional victory of the 
 Laney was due to the Highland dirk and broadsword. 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 In less than eight months from the commencement of 
 the war their leaders admit that they are completely- 
 vanquished, and debate the necessity of at once aban- 
 doning the struggle and expatriating themselves to 
 seek better fortune abroad. This defeat was accom- 
 plished by the Ulster Protestants absolutely unaided, 
 and, alone, amounts to a demonstration that Temple's 
 statement does not remotely approach to truth. 
 
 4. If that statement were near the truth, Ulster 
 ought to be by far the least Protestant province of 
 Ireland. It has ever been, however, since James's 
 plantation, and is now, by far the most Protestant. 
 
 5. The preposterous discrepancies as to the amount 
 of murder and massacre, from 300,000 to 5,000 lives, 
 throw discredit on the testimony of each witness.* 
 
 6. While Cromwell's courts-martial condemned to 
 death 200 individuals in the other three provinces, in 
 which no general massacre of Protestants was ever 
 alleged, in Ulster, where a massacre throwing into the 
 shade the Sicilian Vespers and the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew was perpetrated, one man, Sir Phelim 
 O'Neill, was found guilty and executed. 
 
 IX. 
 
 My most earnest and anxious desire and hope is that 
 a real and affectionate union between Great Britain 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
179 
 
 and Ireland may be accomplished ; not the false union 
 of 1801, brought about notoriously by the most scan- 
 dalous bribery and corruption, equally disgraceful to 
 the bribers and the bribed ; and which has been for 
 seventy-eight years justly regarded, by an immense 
 majority of the Irish people, as one of their worst 
 wrongs. A true union between the two countries is 
 the common interest of both. I am confident this will 
 be slowly but certainly secured by the dogged per- 
 severance on the part of England in the complete 
 reversal of her policy in the government of Ireland, 
 adopted since 1829 — unmoved by the brainless and 
 contemptible yet provoking tactics of each crop of 
 trading Irish patriots. Indeed I am satisfied much 
 progress has been already made towards this consum- 
 mation. 
 
 My parting counsel to my dear Celtic brethren is 
 this: — "Let Erin remember the days of old," but with 
 the special object to contrast the oppressions of old 
 with the benefits conferred upon her by the old 
 oppressor since 1829. They are too numerous to be 
 specified here. I will mention three or four of them. 
 
 (1) The Irish National Education, perfectly free 
 from any just suspicion of tampering with the religious 
 belief of any sect — offering an excellent education, 
 availed of at present, more or less completely, by 
 upwards of 1,000,000 of children, and supported by 
 a parliamentary grant of £651,091. Contrast with 
 
 12* 
 
180 
 
 this the system supported by Parliament from 1747 to 
 about 1825 — the Charter Schools, of which there was 
 one for each county. About 1,400 children were 
 lodged, fed, clothed, and educated in these schools, on 
 condition that they should be brought up Protestants. 
 In 1784 the truly great and excellent Howard visited 
 Ireland for the purpose of enquiring into the condition 
 of the prisons. He chanced to inspect some of these 
 schools, and was so shocked by what he witnessed that 
 he used his influence to procure a parliamentary 
 inquiry into their management. The committee 
 appointed to inquire reported that — 
 
 " The children were sickly, pale, and such miserable objects 
 that they were a disgrace to all society ; that their reading 
 had been neglected for the purpose of making them work for 
 their masters ; that they were in general filthy and ill-clothed, 
 without shifts or shirts, and in such a situation as it was in- 
 decent to look on ; the diet was insufficient for their support ; 
 and in general they had the itch, and other eruptive disorders." 
 
 The grant, they said accordingly, was expended — 
 
 "For the purpose of imprisoning, starving, beating, dis- 
 easing, destroying the natural affections, and letting the 
 understanding run to waste of 1,400 poor children annually, 
 under the pretence of instructing and converting the young 
 generation." 
 
 (2) The Encumbered Estates Act, by which the 
 ruined Irish landlords were swept off and replaced by 
 successors who possessed at least the ability to do 
 their duty by their estates and tenants. 
 
181 
 
 (3) The Poor-law, before the enactment of which 
 the destitute were mainly supported by the poor. 
 Now the landlord, who contributed little, and the 
 absentee, who seldom contributed at all, are obliged to 
 contribute in proportion to their means. 
 
 (4) The Parliamentary Grant for the relief of the 
 sufferers by the Famine of 1846-7, to an amount ex- 
 ceeding what in the world's history was ever bestowed 
 in a similar calamity by any nation for the relief of 
 its own starving people. 
 
 (5) The Act for the Reform of the Irish Municipal 
 Corporations. These corporations had been strong- 
 holds of Orange or high Tory Protestant ascendancy 
 till now. Roman Catholics had, indeed, been made 
 eligible to them during the English scare occasioned 
 by the revolutionary proceedings in France ; but for 
 forty-seven years after not one Roman Catholic had 
 been elected to the Dublin Corporation. Now they 
 are not only eligible but elected everywhere. 
 
 (6) The Act for the Disestablishment and Disen- 
 dowment of the Established Church of Ireland — worth, 
 with reference to the pacification of Ireland, more than 
 all the rest. 
 
 You are too sharp-witted, my dear fellow-country- 
 men, not to know that the last will-o'-the-wisp lighted 
 for you by the Home-Rulers is a fraud. You know as 
 well as I do that nine out of ten of these patriots care 
 not at all for Home-Rule but as a means of attaining to 
 
182 
 
 separation from Great Britain, which is at the bottom 
 of their hearts. Such separation, you are quite aware, 
 could only be effected by force, and where is the force 
 to effect it 1 You do not yet know the force you 
 would have to overcome to compel the separation, but 
 your children will know it. The British Empire has 
 about a sixth part of the land-surface of the whole 
 earth, and nearly a fifth of the population of the world 
 under her dominion, not to mention that u Britannia 
 rules the waves." Within the last fifty years the 
 population of England has doubled — Ireland's, within 
 the same time, has fallen off above two millions. Her 
 present population is not twice that of London alone. 
 A few years ago the United Kingdom crushed a rebel- 
 lion, at a distance of several thousand miles, of 50,000 
 well disciplined and well armed infantry, horse, and 
 artillery ; and two absurdly called Irish rebellions, one 
 in a cabbage-garden, the other at a few police-stations, 
 with a handful of Constabulary. England cannot and 
 certainly will not ever permit the noble Cork harbour 
 to be converted into a Franco-Irish or Yanko-Irish 
 naval station, with a Sebastabolic fortress at its 
 entrance. 
 
 The result of the Irish National Education will 
 before very long make every young Irish peasant, nay 
 every youug Irish woman, acquainted with these and 
 other such facts; and then, alas for the gasconade of 
 the trading Irish sham patriot ! or, if he ventures still 
 
183 
 
 to vapour in the theatre of Ireland, the very girls wall 
 hoot him off the stage. 
 
 But let us suppose the impossible achieved, and that 
 Ireland has shaken herself free from all connection 
 with Great Britain. How wretched would her condi- 
 tion be ! She would be at the mercy of any petty naval 
 power on the Atlantic seaboard which might take 
 umbrage at any of her proceedings. The Ultramon- 
 tanes would, at least at first, carry everything before 
 them, and a crusade would forthwith be declared to 
 re-instate the Pope in his rightful possessions. A fleet 
 of merchant vessels would be equipped, carrying ten or 
 twenty thousand men, to accomplish this pious purpose. 
 They would be met, of course, outside the Strait of 
 Gibraltar by a squadron of iron-clads and gun-boats 
 despatched by the King of Italy, which would speedily 
 (in spite of a predicted shower of paving-stones on the 
 sacrilegious Italians) send them to the bottom of the 
 Atlantic ; and, if his Majesty were minded to give a 
 never-to-be-forgotten lesson, his fleet would be ordered 
 to proceed to Ireland, with directions to bombard our 
 sea-ports, burn every ship, vessel, yacht, and boat round 
 the Green Isle, and to declare a blockade of all our 
 ports, so as to preclude our taking a herring or im- 
 porting a pound of Indian meal, of tea, or sugar, or 
 cotton, or flaxseed, or tobacco. Denmark, Holland, 
 Belgium, or Portugal could without difficulty inflict 
 the same miseries upon us in case of quarrel. 
 
184 
 
 The alternative offered us (of which, indeed, we are 
 now in possession) is that we should form no unim- 
 portant part of the most powerful empire in the world, 
 with security against bombardment or blockade, and 
 with the blessings flowing from the full and fair parti- 
 cipation in the wisest, the most stable, and the freest 
 constitution the world has ever known. This is a 
 bird you have in the hand. How many of those in 
 the Home-Kule bush is it worth \ 
 
 I deprecate everything that tends to keep up ill 
 blood between Great Britain and Ireland, and there- 
 fore, before I lay down my pen, I beg leave to petition 
 all writers, newspaper editors, and others, who have to 
 deal with Irish affairs, or follies, or unreasonableness, 
 to deny themselves the mischievous and malicious 
 pleasure of the biting sneer or gibe with which they so 
 frequently season their Irish articles. These are, in 
 the words of " the philosophic historian whose writings 
 will instruct and delight the last generations of man- 
 kind,"* the "Facetice asperw quce acrem sui memoriam 
 linquunt"^ 
 
 * Gibbon. t Tacitus. 
 
185 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note to page 178. 
 
 The following estimates have been made by Protestant writers 
 respecting the numbers of Protestants murdered in the Ulster 
 Massacre of 1641. May makes the number slain in the 
 first month of the insurrection, 200,000. Temple, 150,000 
 in the first two months, or 300,000 in two years. Eapin 
 gives 150,000 in about four months ; the Long Parliament, 
 154,000. Lord Clarendon says 40,000 or 50,000 were mur- 
 dered before the Protestants suspected any danger. Hume 
 adopts this estimate. 37,000 perished within the first year 
 according to Sir W. Petty's computation, which Carte adopts. 
 The Rev. Dr. Warner asserts that in the two first years of the 
 Eebellion 12,000 Protestants were slain ; of whom, however, 
 only 4,000 were murdered. Cooke Taylor, a Protestant of a 
 Cromwellian family, says : — " After a very careful examina- 
 tion of all the statements, the present writer believes that the 
 number of persons killed by the insurgents was less than 
 5,000 ; and that about an equal number was slain by their 
 opponents."* Xow, with such preposterous discordance among 
 the witnesses, what is the testimony of any individual witness 
 worth, unless he fully and clearly sets before the reader the 
 grounds on which he builds the conclusion at which he has 
 arrived ? — which not one of them does. 
 
 There are two historians who have in latt€r times given 
 narratives of this sad period, for one of whom I entertain 
 profound respect, and for the other much respect. The 
 former, Lord Woodhouselee, in his admirable epitome of 
 Universal History, says : — " Ireland, during these transactions, 
 
 * Civil Wars of Ireland, vol. L,p. 264. 
 
186 
 
 exhibited a scene of horror and bloodshed. The Irish Roman 
 Catholics had judged these turbulent times a fit season for 
 asserting the independency of their country, and shaking off 
 the English yoke. From a detestable abuse of the two best 
 of motives, religion and liberty, they were incited to one of 
 the most horrible attempts recorded in the annals of history. 
 They conspired to assassinate, in one day, all the Protestants 
 in Ireland, and the design was hardly surmised in England 
 till above 40,000 had been put to the sword."* The latter, 
 Mr. Green, in his excellent Short History of the English 
 People, 1875, p. 524, says: — "A conspiracy, organised with 
 wonderful power and secrecy, burst forth in Ulster, where the 
 confiscation of the settlement had never been forgiven, and 
 spread like wildfire over the centre and west of the island. 
 Dublin was saved by a mere chance ; but in the open country 
 the work of murder went on unchecked. 50,000 English 
 perished in a few days, and rumour doubled and trebled the 
 number. Tales of horror and outrage, such as maddened our 
 own England when they reached us from Cawnpore, came 
 day after day over the Irish Channel. Soon depositions told 
 how husbands were cut to pieces in the presence of their 
 wives, their children's brains dashed out before their faces, 
 their daughters brutally violated and driven out naked to 
 perish frozen in the woods." 
 
 Lord Woodhouselee, I am persuaded, relies upon the 
 authority of Hume : and Mr. Green, I suspect, accepts the 
 relation of the same historian, whose own thrilling narrative 
 (suggestive of " quills upon the fretful porcupine "), in his 
 eloquent, beautiful, and pure English, is based mainly on 
 Temple's romance; although he himself throws strong dis- 
 credit on the veracity of the Irish historian. "By some 
 computations," says Hume, " those who perished by all these 
 cruelties are supposed to be 150,000 or 200,000. By the 
 most moderate, and probably most reasonable account, they 
 are made to amount to 40,000 ; if this estimate itself be not, 
 
 Universal History, vol. vi., p. 125. 
 
187 
 
 as is usual in such cases, very much exaggerated." * Let us 
 give the great historian all the credit and " honour due " for 
 having thus humanely spared the lives of at least 120,000 of 
 his fellow-creatures. 
 
 Temple, in his History of the Kebellion, gives what he calls 
 sworn evidence of about 100 murders. The testimony in full 
 half of these cases is to the following effect : — " I, A. B., swear 
 that I was told by C. D., that E. F. murdered G. iT."f The 
 oath is good no doubt as to the fact of A. B. having been told 
 this by C. D. ; but has no bearing whatever on the truth of 
 C. D!s report, and is therefore quite irrelevant. Mr. Webb, 
 in a recent valuable contribution to Irish history, says in Iris 
 article on Sir John Temple: — "A careful collation of the 
 evidence of these eighty deponents shows that but fourteen 
 of them testify to what they saw themselves. (The evidence 
 of the others is entirely hearsay.)" £ 
 
 *Hume, vol. vi., p. 442. Dublin : 1780. 
 
 t Temple's Irish Rebellion, pp. 84-124. London : 1812. 
 
 X Compendium of Irish Biography, Alfred Webb, p. 520. 
 
BOSTON COLLEGE 
 
 3 9031 01189371 6 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
 Books may be kept for two weeks and may 
 be renewed for the same period, unless re- 
 served. 
 
 Two cents a day is charged for each book 
 kept overtime. 
 
 If you cannot find what you want, ask the 
 Librarian who will be glad to help you. 
 
 The borrower is responsible for books drawn 
 on his card and for all fines accruing on the 
 same.