Having taken a fortnight’s rest after Scariffhollis, Sir Charles Coote proceeded to besiege the strong fort at Charlemont, which had been in Sir Phelim O’Neill’s hands since the first outbreak in 1641. As Sir Phelim had accepted the peace of 1649 it was reckoned as a royal fortress, and was the last to hold out for the King in Ulster. Venables joined Coote, and a hot fire was kept up with guns and mortars; but it was not till near the middle of August that a practicable breach was made. The garrison made a desperate resistance, assisted by many women, ‘who more appeared like fighting Amazons than civilised Christians.’ The storming-party were assailed not only with shot, but with scalding slops and hot ashes, and were beaten back after two or three hours’ fighting. Venables had a narrow escape, but Coote, who commanded in chief, remained ‘a spectator, smoking of tobacco at distance.’ The total loss of the besiegers was not less than 500 men, but O’Neill’s ammunition was running short, and only thirty men out of 140 were able to bear arms, all the rest being killed or wounded. He went out himself to confer with Coote, while Colonel Audley Mervyn, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and Major King, afterwards Lord Kingston, were sent in as hostages. The garrison marched out with arms and baggage, Sir Phelim having leave to go beyond sea, and Coote undertaking to find him a vessel. Unfortunately for himself, O’Neill remained in Ireland, while Venables returned to Carrickfergus and Coote to Londonderry. A Parliamentary garrison was left in the fort which had been so dearly won.[187]

While the strong places of Leinster, Munster, and Ulster were being reduced, Ormonde was struggling to maintain the semblance of royal authority beyond the Shannon. The Loughrea conferences had led to no good result, and the bishops assembled on their own account at Jamestown in Leitrim on August 6. They announced their intentions to Ormonde through the Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam, who reminded him of what he knew only too well—that there was no army and no money, and that the enemy were actually drawing large contributions from Irish Catholics, whose country was in their hands; so that ‘we are in a fair way for losing our sacred religion, the King’s authority, and Ireland.’ They invited the Lord Lieutenant to send a representative to Jamestown, but he answered with perfect truth that this would be useless after what had already happened. ‘Ancient and late experience,’ he said, ‘hath made evident what power those of your function have had to draw the people of this nation to what they thought fit.’ Yet they had been unable or unwilling to give him possession of Limerick, without which successful military operations east of the Shannon were quite impossible. But he wished the Jamestown assembly all success, especially if the object of the prelates was, as they themselves admitted, to clear their own consciences. He had endeavoured to show ‘that the spring of our past losses and approaching ruin arises from disobedience, and it will not be hard to show that the spring of these disobediences arises from the forgeries invented, the calumnies spread against government, and the incitements of the people to rebellion by very many of the clergy.’[188]

The Jamestown congregation met as announced, and after three or four days’ deliberation they despatched Bishop Darcy of Dromore and Charles Kelly, Dean of Tuam, to Ormonde with full powers to explain their views. They had observed with ‘grief and admiration’ that he threw some of the blame upon them, showed to their own satisfaction that they were not in fault, and left it to their emissaries to declare what they believed to be the only possible means of preserving the country. Ormonde prudently required the plenipotentiaries to put their message upon paper; and the result was a peremptory notice to him to quit Ireland forthwith. The writers plainly said that he was of no use there, but that his great position and experience might avail something if he was by the King’s side. In the meantime, he was to leave the viceregal authority in the hands of someone ‘trusty to the nation, and such as the affection and confidence of the people will follow.’ On the day before this message was delivered the assembled prelates had actually excommunicated all who adhered to the Lord Lieutenant, so that there was little sincerity in sending the Bishop of Dromore and his colleague at all. The excommunication, with the declaration prefixed, though dated August 12, was withheld from publication until September 15, so that Ormonde’s answer might be first received. The Commissioners of Trust persuaded him to summon the bishops to another conference at Loughrea on August 26, and he went there himself; but they only sent the Bishops of Cork and Clonfert, with no instructions except to demand an answer to their order for his leaving the kingdom. In giving this, Ormonde pointed out that he had returned to Ireland from a sense of duty, that he had been prepared in April last to make room for a Roman Catholic viceroy, but that many of the prelates themselves had then begged him to stay; and that he waited now because the King’s position in Scotland was hopeful and orders might come which he would be sorry should arrive in his absence. ‘We plainly observe,’ he added, ‘that though the division is great in the nation under our government, yet it will be greater upon our removal; for which in a free conference we should have given such pregnant evidence as we hold not fit this way to declare.’ The best chance of prevailing upon Charles to send supplies was to be able to tell him how obedient and dutiful the people were. A majority of the Commissioners of Trust, all Roman Catholics, wrote in much the same strain, urging that disloyalty on the part of the clergy would reflect upon the nation at large, and could only result in general ruin.[189]

On August 16, four days after the decree of excommunication was passed at Jamestown, an event happened in Scotland which was alone sufficient to destroy all Ormonde’s plans. It is less famous and was less important than the Glamorgan treaty, but it shows that Charles was his father’s son, and he even contrived to better the instruction. At Dunfermline on August 16, he was induced to sign a declaration in which he professed himself ‘deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit before God’ for his father’s sin in opposing the Covenant, ‘and for the idolatry of his mother, the toleration whereof in the King’s house, as it was matter of great stumbling to all the Protestant churches, so could it not but be a high provocation against Him who is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the father upon the children.’ He further declared his conscientious conviction of the ‘exceeding great sinfulness and unlawfulness of that treaty and peace made with the bloody Irish rebels, who treacherously shed the blood of so many of his faithful and loyal subjects in Ireland.’ For the future he would prefer affliction to sin, and employ no one who had not taken the Covenant; and he ‘recalled all commissions given to any such persons.’ The baseness of this declaration can hardly be matched in our history, but George IV. tried to emulate it when he authorised Mr. Fox to inform the House of Commons that he was not married to Mrs. Fitzherbert. Clarendon can only say that Charles was ‘absolutely forced to consent’ and other apologists take the same line, but Carte, with all his royalism, was not deceived by sophistry of this kind. He makes every allowance for Charles’s youth and difficulties, but with the scathing reflection that ‘if a man once gets over his natural magnanimity he is afterwards fit for anything; and having done one mean thing, is capable of doing ten thousand.’[190]

The articles of the peace had been brought by Lord Byron to the Hague early in March 1649, and Charles had written twice to confirm them, declaring himself ‘extremely well satisfied.’ These letters were found by Carte among Ormonde’s papers, as well as the latter’s acknowledgment, so that their delivery is not doubtful. Charles did not deny the facts, and he sought for the means of neutralising them as much as possible. The emissary chosen was Dr. John King, Dean of Tuam, who had taken refuge in Scotland, and we have his own account of the interview where he received his instructions. ‘The Scots,’ said Charles, ‘have dealt very ill with me, very ill. I understand you are willing to go into Ireland. My Lord of Ormonde is a person that I depend upon more than anyone living. I much fear that I have been forced to do some things which may much prejudice him. You have heard how a declaration was extorted from me, and how I should have been dealt withal, if I had not signed it. Yet what concerns Ireland is no ways binding, for I can do nothing in the affairs of that kingdom without the advice of my council there; nor hath that kingdom any dependence upon this, so that what I have done is nothing.’ It is only fair to say that after Dunbar had been fought he took the opportunity of another trusty messenger to express his gratitude, begging Ormonde not to run any unavoidable personal risk, but to leave Ireland whenever he pleased. He had already advised him that Scotland was not safe, and that he should seek France or Holland. It took Dr. King about two months to get to Ormonde, and he at once undertook ‘through much hazard’ to take the answer back to Scotland. The Dunfermline declaration was already known in Ireland through other channels, and Ormonde at first thought the report was a fabrication circulated by the Scots politicians for their own purposes, but the Dean of Tuam brought a printed copy with him, and there was no longer room for doubt. This was on October 13, and Ormonde at once summoned the Commissioners of Trust to meet him at Ennis on the 23rd, and by their advice convened an assembly to sit at Loughrea on November 15. To the Commissioners he explained in writing that the Dunfermline declaration had been ‘by some undue means obtained from his Majesty’ upon one-sided assertions of the peace being unlawful and without hearing the other parties. For himself he was determined by every means in his power to maintain the validity of the peace as binding the King and all his subjects until the authorised representatives of the Irish nation should have ‘free and safe access unto his Majesty,’ provided always that the Jamestown declaration forbidding obedience to him as Lord Lieutenant should be revoked, that the bishops should acknowledge that they had invaded his Majesty’s prerogative, and that he and the necessary forces under his command should be freely admitted into all garrisons. The Commissioners of Trust accepted the excuses made for Charles, whose declaration they had read with ‘inexpressible grief,’ and for themselves agreed to the Lord Lieutenant’s provisoes. In order to prepare matters for the ‘assembly of the nation,’ they asked and obtained leave to go to Galway, and to confer with the standing committee of bishops there.[191]

Six bishops met the Commissioners accordingly, among them being Darcy of Dromore, French of Ferns, who was Ormonde’s bitter enemy, and Lynch of Clonfert, who had protested even against the short delay interposed between the decree of excommunication and its publication. Bellings and his colleagues suggested that the peace and the maintenance of the royal authority were the only means of preserving union, and to this end they asked that the excommunication and declaration should be withdrawn with a promise not to renew them. It was understood by both parties that Clanricarde was Ormonde’s only possible successor, but the bishops could and did argue irresistibly that Charles had withdrawn his own authority ‘and thrown away the nation from his protection as rebels.’ With less wisdom they declared in the baldest way that it was a scandal to have a Protestant governor over Catholics, and that in the abortive agreement between the Pope and Henrietta Maria this had been provided against. They positively refused to annul the excommunication or to promise not to renew it, and they reiterated the complaints of bad administration already so often made against Ormonde. In conclusion they agreed that Clanricarde should govern with the consent of all parties and with ‘the King’s authority from the Lord Lieutenant which he conceives is in him’ until a free and lawful assembly should otherwise order. If such a body decided to treat with the enemy the Church would acquiesce, though she would be the heaviest loser, but they conjured the Catholics of Ireland to imitate the Maccabees, whose fears were greater for the Temple than for their nearest and dearest kinsfolk. The result of this preliminary conference was not very hopeful, but the compromise was accepted by Darcy, who two months before had been authorised to demand that Ormonde should put the viceregal authority into commission, the commissioners being all Roman Catholics nominated by the bishops. This he had of course refused to do, and Clanricarde was the only alternative.[192]

The assembly began to meet at Loughrea on November 15, but did not constitute themselves until the 25th, when Sir Richard Blake was elected chairman. The lay element from the first asserted itself, and some bishops, who in purely ecclesiastical manifestoes considered themselves bound by the majority, showed a certain amount of independence. On December 7 an agreement was rather unexpectedly arrived at, and probably this was hastened by the fact that Ormonde was on shipboard and might leave Ireland without delegating his authority. First the prelates were induced to say that they had no intention at Jamestown of usurping the royal authority, and no aim but the ‘preservation of the Catholic religion and people.’ The assembled ‘Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Gentry’ then declared their conviction that the royal authority was the best bond of union, and that no body of men in Ireland had any power to impair it. It is to be observed, and no doubt Ormonde did observe, that the deposing power of the Pope is not referred to. They then besought the Lord Lieutenant to leave his authority in some person faithful to his Majesty ‘and acceptable to the nation,’ to whom they promised ready obedience. And they fully acknowledged that the retiring viceroy had risked person and property for the royal cause, and that, even when unsuccessful, he had ‘faithful intentions and hearty affections to advance his Majesty’s interests and service.’ This manifesto reached Ormonde at Gleninagh in Clare, where he had put in before taking his final departure. He wrote to say that he was not fully satisfied, but that he had sent a commission as Deputy to Clanricarde, and he left it to him to get further explanations and to accept or reject the charge according to their tenor. This was his last act in Ireland until after the Restoration and, having refused Ireton’s offer of a pass, he sailed on December 11 in a very fast vessel of twenty-four tons and four guns which the Duke of York had provided for him in Jersey. He was accompanied by Inchiquin, Bellings, Daniel O’Neill, and many officers, and it was three weeks before they reached land at Perros Guirec in Brittany. Forty men in a boat of twenty-four tons in the open Atlantic and in midwinter must have endured very great hardships. Ormonde made his way to Caen, where his wife and children were, and from thence to Paris. A second ship with Sir George Lane and others reached France, and a third with servants and baggage was lost at sea. The distinguished exiles were from the first in the direst distress.[193]

CHAPTER XXXIV

CLANRICARDE AND IRETON, 1651

When Ludlow landed in Ireland a few weeks after Ormonde left, one of his first acts was to sign a proclamation prohibiting the slaughter of calves and lambs. The waste of the war had been so great that there was a danger of depleting the country of its stock. Starvation was imminent everywhere, and to this the plague was added, which first appeared in Galway and was supposed to be imported from Spain. The Aphorismical Discovery relates with something like glee that the first house visited was that of Sir Richard Blake, which had been cursed by Rinuccini, and that the contagion flowed thence ‘as from a channel, the divine vengeance of high power unto the respective provinces of Ireland, except Ulster, as not guilty of either censure, curse, or ejection of my lord nuncio.’ Ludlow says simply that it reached most parts, and Bishop O’Brien of Emly that it was in every corner. It was very bad in the south, Kilkenny, Waterford, and Limerick being severely scourged. Bishop Comerford of Waterford estimates the deaths in his own diocese at 5000, and many priests were taken. ‘Our sins,’ he adds, ‘have provoked this scourge.’

At first the English soldiers were nearly exempt, but suffered equally afterwards; as a punishment, Ireton thought, for trusting in the carnal arm and not giving God the glory. The bishops and the clerical politicians generally do not show to advantage in their disputes with Ormonde, and the narrative of a poor friar is much better worth reading. Having visited in disguise Kilkenny, Ross, and many other places he came to Waterford, where many were dying of the plague. ‘Here have I been,’ he says, ‘these six weeks ministering indifferently to poor and rich, and here I intend to stay until plague or gallows ends my life. I had no confessor until God sent an English priest to this city, who, coming lately out of Spain into England, was pressed for military service by the Parliamentarians, who did not know he was a priest, and sent with others to Ireland, where he escaped and is now in hiding here. I go freely about the city as gardener of its chief heretic, and even work at carrying burdens with the porters. I am indifferent whether God continues thus to hide me or not, but if I can get away unrecognised I will go to Dungarvan and Youghal and so round Ireland until He pleases to take me to Himself. Our father Gregory is within fifteen or twenty miles, but being known and unwieldy he cannot come to me, nor can I go to him or account of the scarcity of priests in these parts, all the native clergy being driven out.’[194]

Ireton was Lord Deputy, and commanded the army, but the Council of State found it necessary to give him help in the civil government. After some discussion, Edmund Ludlow, Miles Corbet, John Jones, and John Weaver were appointed to settle the affairs of Ireland ‘with the advice and approbation of General Cromwell, Lord Lieutenant thereof, and Henry Ireton, Esq., his deputy, or either of them.’ Of these commissioners the first three were regicides, while Weaver had been appointed one of the late King’s judges, but had never acted. Ludlow was also general of the cavalry, and his friends suggested that Cromwell only wished to get him out of the way, ‘but I,’ he says himself, ‘could not think myself so considerable and therefore could not concur with them in that opinion.’ He was not anxious to go, but Cromwell declared that he was the fittest man, and that private affairs must yield to those of the public. The Commissioners were instructed to advance religion and to suppress ‘idolatry, popery, superstition, and profaneness,’ executing the statutes against Recusants and taking care that Papists should have no public employment, nor be allowed to ‘practise as counsellors at law, attorneys, or solicitors, nor to keep schools for the training up of youth.’ They were to study the revenue and reduce expenses as soon as the progress of the war allowed, and to take especial pains as to the administration of justice. Ludlow and his colleagues were all at Waterford before the end of January, and Lady Ireton, who travelled with them, joined her husband there.[195]

After the surrender of Waterford, Galway, Limerick and Athlone were the only walled towns still held by the Irish, and the next work awaiting Ireton was to find a passage over the Shannon. Vast quantities of cattle, some stolen, had been driven into the Wicklow mountains, which were diligently searched by Ireton’s parties. In Glen Imale, where the Royal Artillery now practise, a great herd was captured, and part of it was handed over to Sir Hardress Waller, who was detached at the beginning of September to summon Limerick, and to blockade it as far as that could be done from the left bank of the Shannon. By his defence of Clonmel Hugh O’Neill had earned the respect of his foes, and civilities passed between him and Waller, but he declared his resolution to maintain the city to the death, ‘for the use of his Majesty King Charles.’ The citizens were well disposed to resistance, but the unfortunate governor had no soldiers, and the corporation would admit none. He himself was not ‘excommunication-proof,’ to use Preston’s phrase, and he thought it best to keep quiet until circumstances changed. His personal safety even was doubtful, and he begged Ormonde’s pardon for not going to bid him farewell, since he ‘gloried in nothing more than to be esteemed a faithful observer of monarchical government.’ If Ireton had been a great commander he would not have divided his army, and probably he could have taken Limerick by pressing it resolutely when no preparations had been made for resistance, and while dissensions were rife within the walls. Instead of this he went to Athlone, where the garrison abandoned the town on the Leinster side. Sir Charles Coote established a camp among the half-burned houses, and Ireton occupied himself in reducing scattered garrisons, which might safely have been neglected. The most important was Birr, which was deserted by its garrison on the approach of the army and occupied on September 28. Roscrea, Thurles, Cashel, and Thomastown near Tipperary were visited, and on October 4 Ireton encamped near the old Desmond stronghold at Lough Gur, whence he approached Limerick on the western side. He asked for a passage through the city, which he would then protect, but of course this was refused, and on October 9 the Deputy went to see what could be done about making a bridge at Castle Connell.[196]

Axtell left Kilkenny with 800 men on October 6, and marched towards Athlone, from which Coote had withdrawn northwards. While he was on his way Clanricarde crossed the Shannon with over 3000 men, took Ferbane and besieged Kilcolgan in King’s County. In the face of a superior force Axtell was unable to cross the Brosna, and drew back to Roscrea. The Irish then summoned Birr, taking Streamstown and two other castles near it, but retired again before a fresh advance of Axtell, whose force was trebled in a few days by the arrival of contingents from Tipperary and Wexford. On October 25 the Parliamentarians advanced to the Shannon, where they found the enemy strongly posted in the island or peninsula of Meelick, near Banagher, which was then accessible only by one passage flanked with bogs and defended by three separate entrenchments one behind the other. The two first were carried pretty easily, but at the third it came to a hand-to-hand fight. Axtell’s men burst into the island and the slaughter was very great, five hundred being driven into the river and drowned in one body. Out of at least 3000 men only 300 escaped by swimming across. Clanricarde, who thought there was no danger, was away, but his waggon and tent fell into the victors’ hands. The lately captured castles were abandoned, and Axtell returned to Kilkenny, having sent a part of his force to help Ireton in besieging Nenagh. The latter place surrendered on October 30, its garrison of 108 men marching out without arms, and the army soon afterwards went into winter quarters at Kilkenny.[197]

Charles IV., Duke of Lorraine, who, according to Voltaire, spent his life in losing his dominions, had been a lover of the open-hearted Duchess of Chevreuse, for whose sake his state was made the focus of intrigue against Richelieu. Louis XIII. when dying ordered this mischievous lady to be kept out of France, and Mazarin afterwards noted how disaster had dogged her footsteps in Lorraine and everywhere else. Her sojourn in England preceded the rebellion there, her voyage to Madrid was followed by the loss of Portugal and Catalonia, and her stay at Brussels coincided with the progress of French arms at the expense of Spain. Acknowledging the suzerainty of the Emperor and repudiating that of the French king, the Duke of Lorraine had visions of an eighth electorate, and of a commanding military position like that of Wallenstein. He lost his duchy, he did not gain his electorate, and the mercenaries whom he gathered from all sides, and supported by plunder or by forced contributions, were used by the Emperor or the King of Spain with very little regard for the permanent interests of their leader, who, however, made money by the business like an Italian condottiere of the fifteenth century. At the beginning of 1646 he gave a commission to Colonel Thomas Plunket to raise an Irish regiment for service in Flanders, and sought the assistance of Ormonde in so doing. Plunket brought letters to the Confederate Catholics, also, with money enough for recruiting purposes, and with a gift of four field pieces, thirty barrels of powder, and some pikes and muskets. Through the Spanish ambassador in London he had also obtained a safe conduct for himself and a passage for his men through the places held for the Parliament, and he was allowed to carry some of his levies to Flanders. As the Parliamentarians had command of the sea, it was easy for Ormonde to say that he countenanced nothing against the French court, and that there was little chance of Irish recruits being obtainable for the service of Louis XIV.[198]

At the beginning of 1646 the Duke proposed to send 10,000 men into England to help Charles I., but the plan was frustrated, if it was ever meant seriously, by the unwillingness of France and Holland to allow the embarkation in their respective territories. Interference in England would have had sentimental motives mainly, but Charles had other reasons for looking to Ireland. He was a bigamist, having children by a second wife during the lifetime of the first, and he was not of a rank to imitate Henry VIII. His object was to dissolve the first union and to legitimate the second, and assistance given to the Irish Catholics might gain him favour at Rome. The Irish officers in his service would naturally push him in the same direction, and the Irish clergy assembled at Clonmacnoise in December 1649 deputed Nicholas French, bishop of Ferns, and William Burke, provincial of the Dominicans, to ask the Duke’s help. French carried a secret commission signed by some bishops and others under their control, and without any regard to the viceroy. The strength of England had not yet been exerted, and the clergy fancied that Ireland could break off with some foreign help. Many regretted that they had not supported Rinuccini better. Patrick Rochfort, recorder of Wexford, a partisan of the nuncio, went to Jersey about the same time to open communications with Charles II., but he had no authority from anyone holding power in Ireland. His main object seems to have been to intrigue for Ormonde’s removal from the Irish Government. The Duke of Lorraine’s first idea was to deal with Ormonde as the King of England’s unquestioned representative, and he sent over Colonel Oliver Synnott nominally to recruit soldiers in Ireland as of old under Ormonde’s authority, but also with letters relating to the more important negotiations. Rochfort followed Charles to Breda, and proposed to give Duncannon Fort to the Duke of Lorraine as security for an advance of 24,000l. This negotiation was carried pretty far, but nothing actually came of it, and Duncannon was in Ireton’s hands in the following August. Rochfort and Synnott reached Ireland in May, declaring that they had thrown overboard their most secret and important despatches for fear of their capture by a pursuing frigate. There seemed probability enough in their story to induce Ormonde to treat with them, and he gave a commission to Lord Taaffe, Lord Athenry, and Geoffrey Browne to negotiate on his behalf. Galway was now the object instead of Duncannon, but there was mutual distrust between Ormonde and Synnott, and they came to no agreement.[199]

While Synnott’s business hung fire, Ormonde sent Lord Taaffe to the King, and he sailed from Galway Bay on the last day of June, after the arrival of Charles in Scotland. The Duke of York, who was the next best authority, gave him a letter of credence to the Duke of Lorraine at Brussels. Taaffe, whom Carte rightly calls ‘a bold and forward undertaker,’ went first to Paris, which he found hard to leave, as Rinuccini had done before him, and as so many others have done since. Mazarin was much more anxious to keep on good terms with the Parliament than to promote an Irish crusade. Moreover, his enemy De Retz was, by Hyde’s account, the best friend Charles had in France, and he certainly gave him sound advice when he said that the profession of Catholicism, however desirable for his soul’s good, would prevent him from regaining his kingdom. De Retz had befriended the Queen when he found her at the Louvre, a few days before her husband’s death, without funds or credit, and obliged to keep the future Duchess of Orleans in bed for lack of a fire. The coadjutor attributes this destitution to Mazarin, and exaggerated his own services, but it appears from later researches that the Queen’s or Jermyn’s extravagance had much to do with it. The Duke of Lorraine had hesitated about embarking on an Irish adventure without knowing the King of England’s views, but it was thought impossible to send a Catholic emissary to Scotland, and Henrietta Maria wrote twice to that effect, advising the Duke to place the fullest confidence in Taaffe. Later on she had not so good opinion of him, for without consulting her he tried to negotiate a betrothal between the Duke of York and the Duke of Lorraine’s infant daughter. After lingering six weeks in the French capital, Taaffe did not reach Brussels till the end of November, nearly five months after his departure from Ireland. Want of means may have been one cause of delay, for he says: ‘I was like to starve at Paris, though every person saluted me with “votre très humble serviteur jusqu’à la mort!”’ It became clear to him that nothing could be expected either from France or Spain, but there was some chance from Lorraine.[200]

Ormonde left Ireland in December 1650, and was destined not to return until 1662. Meanwhile, the Duke of Lorraine sent Stephen de Henin, Abbot of St. Catherine’s, a person much in his confidence, to Ireland, with letters addressed generally to the men in authority there. Shortly afterwards he wrote to the Pope claiming to be the Church’s champion, and asking for Innocent’s blessing and prayers. De Henin was accompanied by George Dillon, a Franciscan who was Taaffe’s uncle, and who brought 5000l. as an earnest of what might be expected from Lorraine. They landed at Galway on February 26, when Bishop French, who hated Ormonde above all created beings, had sailed for France with a private commission from some of the clergy. He stayed some time at Paris, went on to Brussels about the end of April, and speedily gained the Duke of Lorraine’s ear. Madame de Chevreuse and the Duchess of Orleans gave what help they could, and De Henin found the viceregal authority in Clanricarde’s hands, and being, in Clarendon’s words ‘a wise man and of phlegm enough,’ he refused to treat with anyone else. Four of the Commissioners of Trust, of whom two had already been employed by Ormonde, summoned Clanricarde from Banagher, and he gave the Lorraine envoy a public audience at Tirellan. De Henin handed him the Duke’s letter, and Dillon the two last from Taaffe to Ormonde. Dillon, who had had opportunities of knowing the Lorrainer’s plans, was called upon to submit proposals, and they were not such as Clanricarde could possibly agree to. It was suggested that the protectorate of Ireland should be handed over to the Duke, ‘his heirs and successors,’ that Limerick and Galway should be given in pawn for his outlay, that he should be invited to come over in person, and that in the meantime Lord Taaffe should ‘have as ample commission to treat and conclude with his Highness, as his Highness’s ambassador hath to this kingdom.’ Many of the Commissioners of Trust and several bishops had come to Galway on hearing of the stranger’s arrival, and they drew up fresh proposals less bold in form, but equally destructive of the viceregal authority. In the long negotiations that followed, Clanricarde showed a good deal of diplomatic skill, and had no difficulty in proving that neither the King alone nor any popular assembly without him could convey away Ireland as an estate of inheritance. In the end the Lord Deputy covenanted with De Henin that the Duke of Lorraine should give 20,000l., including what Dillon had already brought, on the security of Limerick and Galway, and of the whole nation collaterally, but without binding any man’s separate estate. The Duke was to have the appointment of a commandant in each cautionary town, provided, nevertheless, that ‘in case of pressing necessity for the public service of the kingdom, the Lord Deputy may make use of his power as hitherto accustomed.’[201]