The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland

Preface

. It is just five years since the publication of the Crom wellian Settlement of Ireland. In that interval I have had the advantage, as a preparation for the present edition, of spending a considerable part of each year in the study, under a Public Commission, of the great body of historical papers called The Carte Collection, preserved at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.1 The Ormonde Papers, which form the most important part of the Carte Collection, comprise the papers, public and private, connected with the government of Ireland during the Duke of Ormonde's engagement in public affairs — an engagement which commenced at the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion in 1641, and con tinued almost to his death, in 1688, with the exception of the ten years of "Ursurped Power," between 16 50 and 1660, when he was in exile with the King.

The documents concerning Ireland during the Commonwealth period are, accordingly, few. But from the Restoration 1 The Reverend Dr. Russell, President of Maynooth, was ap pointed in 1865, by Lord Romilly, Master of the Rolls, my fellow- Commissioner, to go through this great collection, and to catalogue for transcription the official documents it might contain. A

PREFACE.

. IV of the monarchy, Ormonde was the statesman to whom the King, his countrymen, and everybody looked for guidance in their difficulties in Ireland, and to him in effect was its government committed as Lord Lieu tenant, during the greater part of his life. He was made referee of the Commissioners of the Court of Claims by the Act of Settlement in cases of difficulty. From him, also, as Lord Lieutenant, all redress was to be sought in the first instance. Hence there abound among Lord Ormonde's papers, petitions presented to him by the former proprietors, anxious, after seven years of weary exile in Connaught, or beyond sea, to behold the smoke of their own chimneys,1 and to sit again at their own hearths, then in the possession of the Adventurers and Soldiers. In these petitions they set forth their " services and sufferings," and often detail what happened to them during the Commonwealth government ; and by these they pray to be restored to their former lands, or to be admitted to inhabit again the towns where they formerly owned dwellings.

The information thus supplied is often a very in teresting part of the subject of this work, but was necessarily wanting in the former edition. Thus the account of Lord Trimleston's transplantation from his castle near Trim, in the county of Meath, to Monivea, 1 " I shall long infinitely to see the smoke of my own chimney." Bramhall, Bishop of Deny, to Ormonde, 7 March, 1648-9. " Carte Papers," vol. xxiv., p. 45.

PREFACE.

. V in the county of Galway, as there given, is drawn from the Order Books of the Commissioners for Ireland. No notice is taken in these orders of the fate of the former proprietor of Monivea. But among the Carte Papers is found the petition of Patrick French, by which it appears that he was removed with his family from his ancient residence at Monivea, to an assignment on the Clanricard estate, and that he had lost this assignment by the Marchioness of Clanri card's restoration to her jointure lands by the King's order. Yet he could not get back into possession of Monivea (though Lord Trimleston, by the Act for the Settlement of Ireland, passed in 1662, was one of the thirty-six nominees, who were, without further proof, to be restored to their former estates); for the Adventurer or soldier in possession was not to quit until he should be offered a reprise of lands as good as he had got,1 which were not readily forthcoming.

And by the Act of Explanation, passed in 1665, the Nominees were not to be restored, until all deficient Adventurersandsoldiersweresupplied,as it was by this latter Act declared that " the interest of His Majesty's Protestant subjects were his greatest care, and to be first provided for,"2 which rendered his restoration impossible, as these deficiencies were more than 1 The King's Declaration of 30th November, 1660, for the Settlement of Ireland, clause xxv., embodied in 14th and 15 th Chas. II. (A. D. 1662), chap. 2. ' 17 & 18 Chas. II. (A.D. 1665), chap. 2, sects. 5 and 6. VI

PREFACE.

. enough to exhaust all the land applicable to reprisals. Lord Trimleston, consequently, died in possession of Monivea in 1676, as will be seen by the inscription over his tomb ; and Patrick French only recovered his property by purchasing it in 1678, from Lord Trim leston's son and successor, who, probably, in like manner bought back a remnant of the Trimleston estate from the Adventurer or soldier to whom it had been assigned. In the former edition the clearing of the towns of their ancient inhabitants is given as derived from Cromwellian sources. But there is no learning from them what became of the banished people. From the petitions, however, of the banished merchants of Waterford, presented to Ormonde after the Restora tion, preserved among the Carte Papers, it appears that, on being driven from Waterford by General Ireton, on its capture in 1650, they retired to Os tend, St. Malos, Nantz, Cadiz, and some even to Mexico ; and traded, and acquired capital, and re lieved as many Royalists as came in their way.

They prayed, therefore, to be allowed to return with their stocks, and to exercise in their native city the skill they had acquired during eleven years' trading abroad. From facts such as these, derived from the Carte Papers, I have selected the clearing of the towns of Kilkenny, Waterford, and Galway, as examples, to convey a fuller and clearer view of the dealing of

PREFACE.

. VII the Commissioners of Parliament, with the cities and walled towns of Ireland, than it was possible for me to do in the former edition. In that edition, " the Irish massacre," as it has been generally called, was treated as an historical falsehood. As the dissent from this view, of a no less eminent historian than Professor Goldwin Smith, of the University of Oxford, has been lately ex pressed,1 I have given some grounds, not before stated, for so treating it. Curry2 and Carey' have discussed the question at length ; and their collection of proofs is convincing to show how erroneous is the charge. And Lingard, an independent in quirer, comes to a like conclusion. If Mr. Goldwin Smith has critically examined this subject, there can, of course, be no objection made to his expressing his opinion in the strongest manner.

But even supposing his conclusion to be right, he still commits a great in- 1 Professor Goldwin Smith says, in his " Cromwell," "The Catho lics had begun it [the war] by a great massacre of the Protestants, on the reality of which it seems to me idle to cast a doubt, though assuredly, if such deeds could ever be pardoned, they might be par doned in a people so deeply wronged, so brutalized by oppression as the Catholics of Ireland then were." " Three English Statesmen,' 1867. 1 " Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ire land, &c." By John Curry, M. D. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1786. 5 " Vindiciæ Hibernicæ, or Ireland Vindicated, &c, particularly in the legendary tales of the Conspiracy and pretended Massacre in 1641." By M.Carey. 8vo. Philadelphia: 1819.

PREFACE.

. justice by using such terms as that " the Catholics had begun the war by a great massacre of Protestants ;" for he thus includes in the charge three-fourths of the inhabitants of Ireland of that religion who were entirely free from it, even by the admission of their enemies, as the scene was confined to Ulster. And if the Irish of Ulster, being Catholics, and by his own statement " deeply wronged and oppressed" by the English, being Protestants, and were thus forced into resistance and rebellion, it is surely misleading to speak of a massacre of Protestants by Catholics, instead of English by Irish ? They were attacked, not as here tics, but as oppressors — not as Protestants, but as plunderers. There is no space for a proper treatment of the subject within the limits of this work, and I only trust that my imperfect remarks may not prejudice the question.

If they should give rise to any contro versy, no greater benefit could be conferred on the Irish ; for the tale of this massacre will be for ever set at rest, when the questior shall be again discussed. The frontispiece to this volume is a perfect fac simile of a Cromwellian Debenture. At the time of publishing the former edition, I had never seen a Debenture, though for near twenty years, I may truly say, I lost no opportunity of searching for one. When travelling on circuit, it was my custom to ask every one I could venture to address, if he had one, or had ever seen one, or if he had or knew

PREFACE.

. IX of any one who had any Cromwellian documents. Though my search proved ineffectual to get sight of a Debenture, this general query obtained me some valuable documents, and amongst them a transcript from Lord Strafford's Map of the lands intended to be planted in the baronies of Upper and Lower Ormond, in the county of Tipperary, made in or about the year 1637. These great maps — for they comprised Connaught — were the first, it is believed, drawn to scale in Ireland, the size being 40 perches in an inch, and 21 feet to a perch. They were*_* burned in the great fire of 15th April, 171 1, which destroyed the Council Office in Essex-street ; and the great value of the transcript is, that it is authenticated by the certificate of the officer entrusted with its custody, as made on 22nd June, 1710.

I have never seen or heard of any other, and it was a question whether the maps were ever made. It was the late Thomas Sadleir, of Ballinderry House, in the parish of Terryglas, in the North Riding of Tipperary, that lent me his transcript in the year 1 85 1, to have a copy of it made. Va rious were the accounts given of Debenturers and Debentures in different neighbourhoods, but they all proved worthless. My hopes were once high raised by the late George Langford^ attorney, of Nenagh, familiarly known as the "Long Vacation," for his tallness, the length of his legs and arms, and his easy air. He told me of a set of cabin holders not

PREFACE.

. X far from Nenagh, that were said to represent Deben tures, that had got their lands for helping on Ireton's cannon to the siege of Limerick, in 1651. But nothing was known of all this on the spot. In his own villa, in the neighbourhood of Nenagh, he showed a Crom wellian sword (as he said) left behind by some officer of Ireton's, and kept as a relic ever since. At another house, they produced " Langley's iron hand," made for an officer of that name, to replace one lost by him at the storming of Clonmel, under Cromwell, in 1650. But, like the sword, there was no authenti cation of this curious object. The best hopes I ever had of a Debenture were those given me by the late Sir Montagu Chapman, Bart., of Killua Castle, in the county of Westmeath. I happened to meet him in the year 1851 on the Midland Great Western Railway ; and after conversing on Crom wellian subjects, I told him how I had searched in vain for a Cromwellian Debenture.

" Well!" said he, "you shall not be long before you see one. I have a whole sheaf of them ; and the next time I go to Killua I will go to my deed chest, and bring them up to you." That very year he sailed to Australia, to visit an estate he possessed there, and the ship that carried him was never more heard of. On renewing my application, many years afterwards, to his brother, the present Sir Benjamin Chapman, he informed me that Sir Montagu was mistaken ; the sheaf he spoke of were assignments of Debentures, on small pieces of paper

PREFACE.

. XI made by soldiers to their officer, similar to those men tioned at p. 224, n. 3. In 1856, being appointed Turnpikes Abolition Commissioner, and made keeper for the time of the Mullingar Road Debentures, I never looked at them without wishing I might thus come on some Crom wellian debentures. But I had long given up all hope. The very year, however, of publishing the Cromwellian Settlement (1865), I unexpectedly re ceived the inestimable document from Mr. Joseph Hanly, to whom I am indebted for so much va luable information. It will be seen (p. 201), that the soldiers or their representatives held 21,615 de bentures in their hands, at the King's Restoration in 1660 ; and it is to be presumed, that on getting a con firmation of their lands in the Court of Claims, 1660 1670, they were called in, and cancelled.

But there is no provision to that effect in the Act of Settlement. They were obliged, however, to prove their title to the lands they had in possession, on the 7th May, 1659, and must necessarily produce the Debentures and the assignments ; and there can be little doubt that the Debentures were taken from the claimant to prevent any double claims, and the assignments handed back, and thus would be explained the cause of the abundance of these latter documents, and the rarity of Deben tures. The Debenture represented in this volume, it will be seen, was given for arrears before 1649 > an^ the

PREFACE.

. XII lateness of its date — 26 May, 1658 — shows that it be longed to that body of Forty-nine men who were ex cluded, by the Act of Settlement, from the benefit of receiving lands for their arrears, as betrayers of the King's Munster Garrisons to Cromwell,1 which would account for its remaining in possession of the officer. The Lists of the Adventurers for the Land and Sea Forces are now for the first time published, con taining the names, designations, and subscriptions of the 1360 Adventurers. The subject of Soldiers' arrears is treated more at length, and an explanation given of the many different classes of them. And there will be found a fuller account of Debentures and their issue. There are few, indeed, of the matters treated of in the former edition but will be found to have received fresh eluci dation, and to be illustrated by new and additional instances in the present.

JOHN P. PRENDERGAST. Sandtmouni, Dublin, ist of May, 1870. 14th & 15th Chas. II. (A. D. 1662), chap. 2, sect. 195. PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. Of all possessions in a country, Land is the most de sirable. It is the most fixed. It yields its returns in the form of rent with the least amount of labour or forethought to the owner. But, in addition to all these advantages, the possession of it confers such power, that the balance of power in a state rests with the class that has the balance of Land. The laws of most of the states of Europe since the days of the Northern invasions have been made by the landowners. They represent the Conquerors, and have been enabled to prescribe to the mass of the people on what conditions they shall live on the land, or whether indeed they shall live there at all.

The term " Settlement," of such great import in the history of Ireland in the Seventeenth century, means nothing else than the settlement of the balance of land according to the will of the strongest ; for force, not reason, is the source of law. And by the term Crom wellian Settlement is to be understood the history of the dealings of the Commonwealth of England with the lands and habitations of the people of Ireland after their conquest of the country in the year 1652. As their object was rather to extinguish a nation than to suppress a religion, they seized the lands of the Irish, and transferred them (and with them all the power of the state) to an overwhelming flood of new English settlers, filled with the intensest national and religious hatred of the Irish. Two other settlements followed, which may be called the Restoration Settlement, and the Revolution Settlement.

The one was a counter revolution, by which some of the Royalist English of Ireland and a few of the native Irish were restored to their estates under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation.1 The other (or Revolution Settlement) followed the victory of William III. at the Battle of the Boyne. By it the lands lately restored to the Royalist English and few native Irish were again seized by the Parliament of England, and distributed among the conquering nation. 1 Such was the national hatred of the Royalists of England to the Irish (who fought, and lost country and everything for the King), that even in their common exile abroad they rejoiced at Cromwell's proceedings in stripping the Irish of their lands : — " We are at a dead calm [writes Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, from Paris, in 1654] for all manner of intelligence.

Cromwell, no doubt, is very busy. Nathaniel Fiennes is made Chancellor of Ireland ; and they doubt not to plant that king dom without opposition. And truly, if we can get it again, we shall find difficulties removed which a virtuous Prince and more quiet times could never have compassed." Sir Edward Hyde to Mr. Betius, Paris, 29th May, 1654.— Clarendon's "State Tracts," vol. iii., p. 244. Folio. Clarendon Press, Oxford. At the Court for the Sale of Estates forfeited on account of the war of 1 690, the lands could be purchased only by Englishmen. No Irishman, high or low, could purchase an acre of them, or occupy more than the site for a cabin ; for to the condition of labourers it was in tended that the relics of the nation should be reduced.1 The Penal Laws, which lasted nearly in full force till the breaking out of the first American War, were nothing but the complement of the Forfeited Estates Act.

Their main purpose was, on the one hand, to prevent the Irish from ever enlarging their landed in terest beyond the low state to which it had been reduced after the sales by the Forfeited Estates Court — for which reason they were forbid to purchase land ; and, on the other hand, to contrive by all political ways, and particularly by denying them the power to make settlements of their property by deed or will, and by making their lands divisible equally among their sons at their death, to crumble and break in pieces the remnant that had escaped confiscation, and thereby to deprive them of all power and consideration in the state.2 It will thus be seen that these three Settle- 1 They could be purchased by Protestants (1. e. English) only, ist Anne, st. 1, c. 26, sect. 8, English Statute. Two acres was the utmost an Irishman could take a lease of. — Ib. sect. 10. * " As to the intention of the Act,1 it is plain the legislature had a double view ; first, to disable Papists from enlarging their 8th Anne, c. 3, A. D. 17 10. ments are only parts of one whole, and that the Crom wellian Settlement is the' foundation of the present settlement of Ireland.

The term Settlement being understood in this sense, the present sketch is conversant directly with the measures taken by the Parliament of England in dealing with the land. The history of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the personal character of Cromwell and the chief actors, the account of the war from 1649 t0 1653, are no further touched upon than has been thought necessary to the main purpose of the sketch. But it will be seen from the Introduction, and in treating the details of the Cromwellian Settlement, how large a share of the history of Ireland is involved in the Land question. From the days of the first invasion, the King and Council of England intended to make English landed pro prietors in Ireland the rulers of Ireland, as William the Conqueror had made the French of Normandy landlords and rulers of the English.

Though the English were in terrupted in this scheme for the government of Ireland by the wars of Edward I. for the subjection of the Scotch, by the wars of Edward III. and his successors landed interest, so as they should soon moulder away in their hands : the second view was to encourage them to become converts by throw ing some temporal invitation in their way." Vicars against Car rol, in the Exchequer, 1 oth February, 1728. " Several Special Cases on the Laws against the further Growth of Popery in Ireland. By Gorges Edmond Howard, Esq.," p. 37. 8vo. Dublin: 1775. for the crown of France, and finally by the civil wars of England, called the " Wars of the Roses," the de sign was never abandoned. And when Henry VIIL, disencumbered of foreign war and domestic treason, had time to destroy the house of Kildare, he projected the clearing of Ireland to the Shannon, and colonizing it with English.

But the new conquest of Ireland only really began in the reigns of his three children, Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, when the conquest of the lands of the Irish for the purpose of new colonizing or planting them with English was resumed, after an interval of more than three hundred years. During this interval the English Pale, or that part of Ireland subject to the regular jurisdiction of the King of England and his laws, had been gradually contracting — partly by the English of Ireland throwing off the feudal system, and partly by reconquests effected by the Irish, until in the reign of Henry VI. the Pale was nearly limited by the line of the Liffey and the Boyne. Beyond the Pale the English and the Irish dwelt intermixed. And in all the plans for restoring the regular administration of the King's laws in Ire land, previous to the reign of Edward VI., it was al ways proposed that the English of Ireland should be brought back to their ancient military discipline, and should conquer from the Irish the lands in their possession, in order that they might be given to English under grants on feudal conditions by the King. But the English of Ireland clearly foresaw that the b

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. effect of the complete conquest of the Irish would be to give the Government of Ireland to the English of England. Their armed retainers, called Gallowglasses and Kerne, would be put down, as there would no longer remain the pretence of defending the land from the King's Irish enemies. With the regular administration of English law would come back wardships, marriages, reliefs, escheats, and forfeitures, which they were only too happy to have thrown off in the days of Edward II. ; and the final result would be to bring over new colonists from England, who would be rivals to supplant them in the favour of the Government, and in all the offices of the State. The English of Ireland, consequently, were secretly indisposed to effect the reconquest, and it was not until they were subdued that the second conquest began.

The first blow to the English of Irish birth was the limiting the power of the Parliament. In the reign of Henry VIL, Sir Edward Poynings forced from the Irish Parliament a statute whereby the Privy Council of Eng land were made virtually controllers of the Parliament of Ireland; for thenceforth it could originate no statutes, and could pass only such as had been first approved by the Privy Council of England. The Parliament had in fact long become devoted to the Earls of Kildare, who had thereby grown too powerful for the Kings of Eng land. The next and final blow to the power of the Eng lish of Ireland was the fall of the House of Kildare, when Silken Thomas, Earl of Kildare, and his five uncles,

PREFACE.

TO THE F1EST EDITION. XIX were executed at Tyburn for treason, at the end of Henry VIII.'s reign. The head of the ancient Eng lish of Ireland had now fallen ; their Parliament had been already deprived of its power; the main obstacles to the designs of England were removed; and in the following reigns the reconquest of Ireland by planta tion began. At first it was the native Irish that were stripped, as the O'Moores, the O'Connors, and the O'Neils. The Earl of Desmond's great territories, extending over Limerick and Kerry, Cork and Waterford, were next confiscated and planted. Finally, in James I.'s reign, the native Irish, not only of Ulster, but of Leitrim, and wherever else they continued possessed of their original territories, were dispossessed of portions of their lands, varying from one-third to three-fourths, to form plantations of new English.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the old English of Ireland, though they agreed in point of religion with the native Irish, always adhered to the English in any rebellion of the Irish, as in a national quarrel. In James I.'s reign, as all the planters were of the new religion, the old English found themselves supplanted by them in all the offices of the State, as the Irish found themselves supplanted by them in their native homes. It is needless here to recapitulate the long-continued injuries and insults by which the ancient English of Ireland were forced into the same ranks with the Irish in defence of the King's cause in 1641. Chief among b XX

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. them were the attempts to seize their estates under the plea of defective title, in order to plant them with new English. It was thus Lord Strafford got Connaught and parts of Tipperary and Limerick into his power, with the intention of forming a new plantation at the expense of the Bourkes and other old English. One of the old English, in 1644, thus graphically expresses their feelings : — " Was it not the usual taunt of the late Lord Strafford and all his fawning sycophants, in their private conversations with those of the Pale, that they were the most refractory men of the whole kingdom, and that it was more necessary (that is, for their own crooked ends) that they should be planted and supplanted than any others ; and that where planta tions might not reach, Defective Titles should extend ?"

He had known many an officer and gentleman, he adds, who had left a hand at Kinsale in fighting in defence of the Crown of England, when the Spaniards and the Earl of Tyrone were defeated by Lord Mount joy, to be afterwards deprived of his pension for having refused to take the oath of supremacy and alle giance in the Protestant form, though, as one of them answered, on being questioned before the State for matter of recusancy (as they termed it), " It was not asked of me the day of Kinsale what religion I was of."1 1 " Queries propounded by the Protestant Party concerning the Peace now treated of in Ireland, and the Answers thereto made on behalf of the Irish Nation," pp. 11, 12. Small 4k). Paris: 1644. The Scotch and English, however, having rebelled against the King in 1639 (for the march of the Scot tish rebels to the border in that year was on the invi tation of the leaders of the popular party in England, though they themselves did not openly take the field till 1642),1 the Irish rose in his favour.

They were finally subdued, in 1652, by Cromwell and the arms of the Commonwealth ; and then took place a scene not witnessed in Europe since the conquest of Spain by the Vandals. Indeed, it is injustice to the Vandals to equal them with the English of 1652; for the Vandals came as strangers and conquerors in an age of force and barbarism, nor did they banish the people, though they seized and divided their lands by lot;' but the Eng lish, in 1652, were of the same nation as half of the chief families in Ireland, and had at that time had the island under their sway for five hundred years. The captains and men of war of the Irish, amounting to 40,000 men and upwards, they banished into Spain, where they took service under that king ; others of them, with a crowd of orphan boys and girls, were transported to serve the English planters in the 1 To obtain a clear account of the leading causes and principal events of this era in England in a short compass, with all the evi dence to support his view, I know nothing equal to " The Britannic Constitution," by Roger Acherley, Esq., of the Middle Temple.

(chap, ix., "Breaches of the Constitution in the Reign of Charles I."). Folio. London: 1727. 2 See Robertson's " History of the Emperor Charles V.," Appen dix to Introduction. West Indies ; and the remnant of the nation, not ba nished or transported, were to be transplanted into Connaught, while the conquering army divided the ancient inheritances of the native and naturalized Irish amongst them by lot. This scene, never before described, is the subject of the present sketch. By what accident it became my study may deserve mention. I had for about ten years belonged to the Leinster Circuit, travelling through the counties of Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary, when, in the year 1846, I received a commission from Eng land to make some pedigree researches concerning an Anglo-Norman family of the county of Tipperary.