fented to a Truce with the Irish Rebels (Signed Sept. 15. 1643.) In which he allowed the Catholicks to remain in Poffeffion of what they had conquered fince the Rebellion, to the great Grief of the Proteftants, who by this Means were legally difpoffeffed of their Eftates; a most unpopular Action in favour of a People, who by the late Maf facre were become the very Reproach and Infamy of human Nature.

There was a Neceffity for complying with a Truce, as appears in a Letter from the Lords Juftices to the King (11th of May 1643.) complaining of the Members at Westminster, for not furnishing them with the promifed Supplies. *We have (fay they) by the Bleffing of God been hitherto profperous and fuc'cessful in your Majefty's Affairs here, and fhould be ftill hopeful by the Mercy of God, under the Royal Direction of your facred Majefly, to vindicate your Majefty's Honour, and recover your Rights here, and take due Vengeance of those Traitors, for the innocent Blood they have fpilt, if we might be ftrengthened or fupported therein by needful Supplys out of England; but those • Supplys being hitherto expected to come from the +Parliament of England (on which if your Majefty

6

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had

*Rushworth's Collections. Vol. 5. p. 539. Lord Clarendon's Hift. Vol. 2. p. 321. Mr. Carte's Letters concerning State Affairs. Vol. 3.f. 162. The King

in his Proclamation against the Irish Rebellion Jan. 1. 1641. authorized his Juftices of Ireland, and others his chief Governour or Governours, and General, or Lieutenant General of his Army there, and did thereby accordingly require, and authorize them and every of them to profecute the faid Rebels and Traitors with Fire and Sword, as Perfons, who by their high Difloyalty against him their • undoubted King and Sovereign, had made themselves unworthy of any Mercy or Favour." (A Collection of Letters concerning State Affairs, &c. published 1735. Vol. 3. No. 53. p. 53.) And the Lords Juftices and Council in a Letter to the Speaker of the Houfe of Commons in England, (Letters concerning State Affairs, 1735. No. 134. p. 134.) ufe the following Words. And here we cannot but lament in the Confideration of the Shame and Difhonour which will reflect upon the English Nation, if now, after fo long and often Forewarnings C given by us to that Honourable Houfe, this Kingdome be loft, and that by want of Supplies from thence; wherein all the Comfort left us, is this, that we have done our Parts, and discharged our Duties to God, his Majesty, and to all his Kingdoms, who must bear their Part with us in fo heavy a Lofs." See Letter of the Juftices of Ireland 13. Martij 1642. to Speaker Lentball. [Letters concerning State Affairs. No. 141. p. 148.] See their Letter to his Majefty. Id. ib. No. 144. p. 151, 152. No. 149. p. 156.

In a Letter from the Officers of the Army to the Lords Juftices and
Council,

had not relied we are affured you would, in your high Wisdom, have found out fome other means to preferve this your Kingdom) and fo great and apparent Failure having happened therein, and all the former and late Eafterly Winds bringing us no • other Provifions than thofe few Cheese and Butter, and no Advertisement being brought us of any future Supplies to be fo much as in the way hither, whereby there might be any likelihood, that con• fiderable means of Support for your Majefty's Army might arrive here, in any reasonable Time, before that we be totally fwallowed up by the Rebels, and your Kingdom by them wrefted from < you; we find ourselves fo disappointed of our Hopes from the Parliament, as muft needs trench to the utter Lofs of the Kingdome, if your Majefty in your high Wifdom, ordain not fome prefent • means of Preservation for us.

Nay they, in their Letter in Answer to a Letter of the Members of the two Houfes remaining at Westminfter, directed to the two Speakers, plainly difprove this Charge of Mr. Neal's: * · Concerning the

Council, are the following Words

Or give us leave to make our Application to his Majefty, for a more ample Supply to our Wants, which all the World cannot choose but fee are exceeding great; and which do daily increase ¿ upon us (notwithstanding your Lordship's fo often, and most earnest folliciting the Parliament for us, and the lively Representation which their Committee of Great Trust have made unto them) that we are likely to perifh under the Burden of them for ought we fee, unless we betake us for our Relief to the Fountain of Juftice and Piety, our gracious Sovereign, who we doubt not according to his Princely Favour will be ready to fuccour us.' [Collection of Letters, published by Mr. Carte 1735. No. 127. p. 129.] See their Address to his Majesty to the fame Purpofe. Id. ibid. No 120. The King in a Letter to the Lords Juftices, and Marquifs of Ormonde, 7. Sept. 19. Year of his Reign. [Letters concerning State Affairs, Vol. 3. No. 169. p. 172.] has the following Expreffions, where as not only the great Neglect of the Affairs of that our Kingdome, by the remaining Part of our Houfes of Parliament, who pretended fo great care of it; but their impious perverting of all the Supplies, deftined to their Relief by our Authority (which did ever moft readily concur to any Levy of Men, Money, or any other Work, in order to the Affiftance of our Proteftant Subjects there, and the ⚫ employing the fame in an unnatural War against us their Leige Lord and Sovereign, hath reduced our Army in that our Kingdom into fo heavy Streights, that out of our Care for the Prefervation of them, who fo faithfully ventured their Lives for our Service, we were brought to condefcend to a Treaty for a Cessation of Arms. *Lord Clarendon's Hiftory of the Rebellion. Vol. 2. p. 335. See the Letter at large, remonftrating the ill Ufage of that Kingdome by the Members at Weftminfier. Letters concerning State Affairs, 1735. Vol. 3. No. 182. p. 183. to 193. exclufive.

Commiffion

• Commiffion in your Letters mentioned, it was not to hear what the Rebels would fay, or propound for their own Advantage, as your Letters mention; but his Majefty having received an humble Petition in the Name of the Recufants of Ireland, defiring. 'to be heard, his Majefty thought it not unjuft or 'inconvenient for him, to receive from them, what. they should fay unto him; to whom they infinuated, that they would yet yield due Obedience. And therefore his Majefty by his Commiffion, under the Great Seal of England (wherein he declareth his ' extreme Abhorrence of the odious Rebellion, which the Recufants of Ireland have, without any Ground or Colour raised against him, his Crown and Dignity) authorised fome of his Minifters here, to hear at large what the Petitioners fhould fay or propound, which his Majefty by the faid Commiffion 'directed, that the Petitioners, or the Principal of 'them, authorised by the reft fhould fet down in writing under their Hands, and the Commiffioners to fend the fame unto his Majefty; whereupon his Majefty by the fame Commiffion declared, he would take fuch farther Confideration, as should be juft, honourable, and fit for his Majefty: And that that Course gave not the leaft Interruption to the Proceedings of the War, appears by this, that ⚫ on the eighteenth of March (being in the Time the Commiffioners authorifed by his Majefty, gave meeting to thofe of the other fide upon that Commiffion) the Lord Marquefs of* Ormonde, tho' one of thofe Commiffioners, in his return from Roffe with about two thousand five hundred Foot, and

*The Marquefs of Ormonde was a great Sufferer by the Rebellion in Ireland, as appears from a Letter of his in his Sickness to the King, 1 Sept. 1642. [Letters concerning State Affairs published by Mr. Carte, 1735. No. 105. p. 103.] All my Eftate is rent and torn from me by the Fury of this Rebellion raging now ' in the Kingdome, and nothing left, if I fhould die of this Sickness, to fupport my dear Wife and Children, whilft the present Rebellion fhall laft; but your Ma· jeftie's great Goodness, which never failed me, and which I doe most humbly befeech your Majeftie may be extended towards them, in taking care of them, by making fome fuch honourable Provifion for them as your Majefty in your 6 great Goodness and Wisdom fhall think fit, untill my own Eftate may be fo fettled, as that thereout they may receive convenient Maintenance. • five

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five hundred Horfe of his Majefty's Army, fought with the Army of the Rebels, confifting of about "fix thousand Foot, and fix hundred and fifty Horse, "and obtained a happy and glorious Victory against "them; and the Rebels Army being defeated, and wholly routed, and their Baggage and Munition feifed on, his Majeftie's Forces lodged that Night "where they had gained that Victory.

Signed from his Majefty's Caftle at Dublin, 28. October 1643.

Jo. Borlafe.
La. Dublin.

Ant. Midenfis.

Geo. Shurley.

Fr. Willoughby.

Hen. Titchborne.
Ormonde.

Edw. Brabazon,

Ger. Lowther.
Tho. Lucas.
G. Wentworth.

Rich. Bolton, Canc.
Rofcommon.

Char. Lambert.

Thomas Rotherbam.
Ja. Ware.

*There was no fober Man in Ireland or England, who believed it to be in the King's Power to enable his People to carry on the War; for all, • Men too well knew, that he had neither Money, Victual, Ammunition or Shipping to fupply them: and therefore his Majefty could not but conclude, that by this Application of that State to him, they hoped he would endeavour to extinguish that War, which he could not maintain. And it is very true, that at the fame Time with this Letter [viz. from the Lords Juftices before mentioned] he received

Lord Clarendon's Hift. of the Rebellion, Vol. 2. p. 322. See Lord Clarendon's Hift, View of the Affairs of Ireland, 1720, p. 19, &c. Saint John's Libr. Cambr. H. h. 8, 29. The Earl of Clanricarde and St. Albans in a Letter to his Brother the Earl of Effex, (Collection of Letters concerning State Affairs, Vol. 3. published by Mr. Tbo. Carte 1735. No. 84. p. 77.) has the following Remark,

For my Expreffion concerning the Scots, I did and do ftill believe, that it may be "worthy your Confideration there, that they, when this Rebellion began, were "above 40000 well armed in the North of this Kingdome, and might eafily have "broken it in the Beginning, but they have ftay'd a Time of more Advantage, to

have Pay and Arms out of England, trong Fortreffes delivered them here, and more Forfeitures of Eftates. This I relate as the Obfervation of knowing discreet "Perfons, and no Conceptions of mine.

• Advice

6

• Advice and Information, from fome of his prime
Ministers of that Kingdom, who were well known,
and acknowledged perfectly to abhor the Rebel-
lion, That there was no reasonable Hope of pre-
ferving his Proteftant Subjects, and his own Interest
"in that Kingdome, but by treating with the Rebels,
"and making a Peace or Truce with them." • The
King well forefaw to what Reproaches he fhould
object [fubject] himself, by entring into fuch a Trea-
ty with thofe Rebels; and that they who had perfua-
ded many to believe, that he had given Counte-
nance to, if not fomented the Rebellion, against
all human Evidence that can be imagined, would
'more eafily gain Credit, when they fhould be able
to fay, that he had made a Peace with them: Be-
fides, that he had bound himself not to make Peace
' with the Rebels in Ireland, without the Confent of
his two Houses of Parliament in England.
* On
'the other Side, nothing was more demonftrable,
than that his Proteftant Subjects there, could not
' defend the little they had left, without extraordi-
'nary Aid and Affiftance out of England, that it was
'impoffible for him to fend any to them, and as vi-
fible, that the Parliament would not, or could not;
fo that it seemed only in his Election, whether he
⚫ could preferve the Remainder of his Proteftant Sub-
jects there, and that whole Kingdom in Dependance
upon his Crown, with the Inconvenience of fome
'perverfe and unreasonable Scandal; or fuffer them
to be rooted out; and undergo the perpetual Ob-
loquy of having loft a Kingdome, when it was in
his Power to have retained it within his Subjection;
and whatever he had obliged himself to, in those

* The Ceffation was figned by the Privy Council, and Officers in Ireland, September 15, 1643. (Letters concerning State Affairs, Vol. 3. No. 172. p. 174.) the King in the Grounds and Motives inducing his Majefty to a Ceffation (Letters, &c. No. 173. p. 176.) complains, "That inftead of any Redress or Relief fuch Shippes " as were by the Care and Charity of fome well affected Perfons, provided to tranf"port Clothes and Victuals to them, were in their Voyage thither seized, and taken "by the Ships under the Earl of Warwick: and instead of Endeavours to fend more "Forces thither, attempts were made to draw the Scots Forces from thence into this "Kingdome.

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"Acts