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himself of all the circumstances which may stile the massacre Horrid and Diabolical. But because that volume is swoln to a great largeness, and therefore cannot readily expect to pass the press, it hath been thought fit in the meantime, to publish this small tract, as an Introduction or forerunner (or call it what you please) of the other.

In the last paragraph it is added : 'I doubt not but this small piece will heighten the expectation of the greater volume, which with all diligence shall be hastened to thee.'

The pamphlet then contains 64 pages, in two parts : 'The History of the Irish Rebellion' (pp. 1-30), signed 'T. W.,' and 'Observations' (pp. 41 to 64).

On page 27, Waring says of the 'Articles of peace made at several times by the Marquesse of Ormond with these cannibals,' that :

One of which articles was that all inquiries, indictments, outlawryes and other proceedings against these rebels (whereof those examinations were part) should be vacated and extinguished; which I am sure had been done accordingly to these examinations especially, had they not secretly and on a sudden been conveyed away hither, which could not possibly have been done had not an honest and worthy English Marchant (at my request) closely and exactly passed them away as marchandize amongst other of his goods, at that time so full of danger, when neither such things nor so much as a man must pass over but upon pain of death, without special license. (Which all men might rest confident would not have been granted in that behalf by the then Lieutenant, the Earl of Ormond.) But it pleased God they should be transported to be published to the world. Whereby the justnesse of the War now undertaken may be maintained, the deep sufferings of the English and the execrable designs, plots and actions of the most inhuman and cruell Irish Rebels may be manifested and left to posterity. And the Commonwealth of England have on this so pregnant provocation and universall conspiracy resolved, by God's blessing, to settle a firm assurance to all these English that shall hereafter adventure to improve the English interest in Ireland and at last put it in a case plentifully to retribute to England for their moneys, deep expenses of blood and treasure.

1

In the body of this book Waring described the murders and other outrages in general terms only, giving no particulars either of names, places or dates. His description of the depositions, therefore, is of no historical value.

All this would lead us to expect that the depositions were soon published and that, therefore, Mr. Dunlop's suggestion has been made in ignorance of this publication. As a matter of fact (in spite of all their trouble and expense) the Council of State found that its wisest course was not to publish them. Whether printed or not, they were never issued to the public. For the moment I will draw no inferences from this fact; but, before proceeding with my narrative, will pause to point out that the above facts seem to be a sufficient reason why certain passages in the originals at Trinity College had been crossed out. The abbreviations were probably made for the purpose of compression,1 not necessarily because they were untrue.

1 Italics mine.

After 1650 Calendars of State Papers, newsbooks and other tracts of the times are curiously silent about the depositions. They were never mentioned again.

6

In April, 1652, Bishop Henry Jones, then filling the office of Scout-Master General, hardly a creditable post for a prelate, presented ' an abstract of some particular murders' to the Commissioners in Ireland, who informed the Council of State that Jones had 'the original examinations of them now at large.'

Dr.

But the High Court of Justice '-appointed to try those implicated in the rebellion of 1641-did not commence its sittings until the 14th of October, 1652, at Kilkenny. Jones, therefore, had been suffered to take away with him the depositions, no longer needed in England, as his own personal property.

Another year passed, and then Waring petitioned the Council of State. It is unfortunate that his petition has not survived (or was destroyed), for we should like to know what was stated in it. However, on 1st of April, 1653, the Council ordered a further sum of £120 to be paid to Waring 'for services in taking the examinations concerning the murders in Ireland during the rebellion and printing and publishing somewhat on that subject' (evidently the pamphlet published in 1650), 'and to enable him to return to Ireland; £80 to be paid him here, and £40, on his arrival in Chester.' 1 It was surely an extraordinary course to take, to send part of his money on ahead of him. Was there any reason why the Council wished to ensure his going to Ireland ? Did they want to silence him ?

1 See Miss Hickson's Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, ii. 199. The missing word in Waring's evidence, cited by her, should be 'printed.' Waring's evidence at the trial of Lord Muskerry should run as follows :

'Also concerning the said examinations (i.e., the depositions) Mr. Thomas Waring was examined in Court on oath, of his receiving them by order from the Council of State to be (printed), he saith further that by order he did abbreviate the said examinations as to losses, but not murders.'

In the Eighth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, pp. 572-6, Mr. Gilbert comments at length upon the words and passages struck out. It would seem that he and the authorities he cites have been mistaken in the inferences they drew from these alterations.

2 R. Dunlop, Ireland under the Commonwealth, i, 179.

• For the proceedings of this Court, as reported in Mercurius Politicus, see the present writer's article in this review for February, 1914 (Fifth Series, vol. iii. pp. 180-194).

At Lord Muskerry's trial before the 'High Court of Justice,' on 1st of December, 1653, Waring gave evidence. Lord Muskerry was acquitted.

I wish to point out that, to a very great extent, it is possible to check the depositions by comparing them with the lists of acquittals set out in Mercurius Politicus, the official journal, published weekly in London. This periodical was a pamphlet of 16 pages, and with No. 125 for 21-28 October, 1652, it commenced to give ample accounts of the proceedings at the 'High Court of Justice.' After a week or two these reports dwindle, diminish and almost vanish, and I think the reason for this, probably, is to be found in the number of acquittals the newsbook was compelled to record. Thus, according to Mercurius Politicus, the first three places visited by the 'Court' were Kilkenny, Clonmell and Cork. At the first place 19 persons were condemned to die according to this journal, their names and those of the persons they were supposed to have murdered being stated; while nine were acquitted, the same details being given. But at Clonmell six were condemned and seven acquitted; while at Cork 32 were condemned and 23 acquitted. If a modern Court had a percentage of acquittals like this to record, it would be unusual, to say the least; but if we bear in mind the rigour of criminal courts in those days, and the fact that this so-called 'High Court of Justice' existed for no other purpose than to sentence all those whose crimes were detailed in the depositions, then these statistics are noteworthy and in themselves impeach the depositions. Moreover, in searching through the file of Mercurius Politicus I have failed to find a single mention of the depositions. Indeed, from 1652 until the Restoration there is nothing more to record about the depositions from the pamphlets or State Papers of the time.

With the Restoration, in 1660, this silence was broken and the depositions were discussed once again. The Clarendonian settlement of Ireland was in contemplation, and in order to prejudice the cases of the Irish a tract entitled an 'Abstract' of the murders committed by the Irish since 23rd October, 1641, was published in 1662. The facts given in this tract were summarized from the depositions, and at once elicited a reply from an author whose initals were 'R. S.' but who is otherwise unknown. 'R. S.'s' reply was a tract of twenty-seven pages, entitled,' 'A Collection of some of the murthers and massacres committed upon the Irish in Ireland since the 23rd of October, 1641. With some observations and falsifications of a late printed abstract of murthers, said to be committed by the Irish. Now published by R. S. London, printed for the author, 1662.' The body of this tract, together with the tract it answered, was added to one of the early editions of Lord Clarendon's History of the Irish Rebellion (1720), but the title-page and the preliminary observations, twelve pages in length, were omitted. From these observations I take the following information :

1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1652-1653, pp. 157 and 597. 2 See the present writer's article in this review for February, 1914, for the names in full.

'R. S.' was an English Royalist who had been born in Ireland and was a Roman Catholic. He states of the 'High Court of Justice,' sent over to Ireland to try the perpetrators of the murders described in the depositions of 1642,

that

It is publiquely known that Cromwell's pretended High Court of Justice past through all the parts of Ireland and pickt' out of the people all such as could be in any manner tainted with the spilling of English blood, with that rigour as may be esteemed rather 'summum jus' than moderate Justice, that upon tryalls in the said Court and examinations taken in order to those tryals there were but a few of the many thousands said to be murthered in printed pamphlets found to be real. And it is well known that there were not so many Protestants of the English nation living in Ireland in the beginning of that rebellion as have been printed to be murthered. Also it is undeniable that the first massacres committed at the time of the said rebellion (which occasioned all the mischiefs thereafter happening) was all done upon the Irish and the severall murthers perpetrated in cold blood upon them did twentyfold exceed those which were committed upon the English, and that they who took in hand the publishing of the murthers done upon the English did raise the same to an immense number and painted the hardness thereof with such barbarous circumstances thereby to win compassion and succour from England and to stain the unblemished honour of his Sacred Majesty with some reflections from that rebellion, as hath been manifested upon the tryals of several persons in the said High Court and at the Tryal of Qualifications in Ashloane (Athlone) where the book called the black book, being a collection of the examinations taken in the year 1641 of murthers said to be then committed, being produced, the same was so falsified in most particulars thereof as well by the witnesses pretended to be fondly sworn, as also by none of the persons then and now living, who were in the said book sworn to be murthered, that the said book was for shame laid aside as no evidence, and several other persons who have taken examinations touching murthers have several times since acknowledged the falsity of the matters published by them as being the false information of others, who in the hurry of those times and their own frights were so transported as they swore all their neighbours whom they left behind were all murthered, when all or most of them were afterwards found to be living. And yet all these mistakes, though well known, remain yet unrectified.

1 The British Museum press mark is not a fixed one. I cannot find that any modern writer has noticed this tract. Nor is it catalogued, except under the initials 'R. S'

Compare with this pages 154-160 of The Politicians Cathecism, by N. N., published in 1658 (by Richard Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin).

On page 12 a serious allegation was made against Axtell, the regicide, with reference to the case of Mrs. Fitzpatrick; burnt alive in 1652.1

As for such who, in the usurper's time, have been unjustly executed by the pretended High Courts of Justice, are omitted here for brevity's sake (sic) only a few instances (viz.) The Lord Viscount of Mayo, under colour of being guilty of the murthers committed at Shruell, was put to death by a court consisting of eleaven officers, amongst whom there was not one lawyer, whereof five did acquit him when (sic) the said murders were committed. The said Lord was a Protestant, had no command amongst the Irish and urged at his trial by good proofs that he escaped the murthers with his life by great providence. Col. Bagenall, in 1652, a very loyal gentleman, executed at Kilkenny for signing a warrant to hang one John (sic William) Stone, a known spie, the said Col. being then left for a publique hostage for performance of articles concluded there and not discharged before his execution. Mr. Edward Butler, son to the Lord of Mount-Garret, having notice sent him that some Protestants were ahanging at Ballaragad, came with all hast to preserve their lives. Which he did of such as he overtook alive. Yet was condemned and executed because he came not time enough to save all of them that were hanged, upon a suspicion he might save them as well as the rest. How unjustly the Lady Roch was put to death for murthering an unknown person is notoriously known. And Mrs. Fitz-Patrick was executed on the testimony of one woman, who afterwards did acknowledge that she was set on by Col. Axtel, and had a sum of money from him for such prosecution.

Some evidence about these cases mentioned by 'R. S.' has been elicited in modern times. Mr. Gilbert, in the Eighth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (p. 576), draws attention to the fact that at 'Court of Transplantation' at Athlone, in 1655,

the Attorney General produced depositions taken in 1642 in which Charity Chappell and George Littlefield, of Armagh, declared, with much

1 See more about the case in the article in this review for February, 1914.

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