ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

THE present edition is printed verbatim from the original MS.

preserved in the Bodleian library as far as it goes: the remainder is taken from another MS. in the same library, which seems to have been transcribed from the original MS. when complete. On the cover of the original MS. is written by Dr. Douglas, late bishop of Salisbury, the following memorandum: "Clarendon's MS. of the Irish rebellion. Imperfect. N. B. It " contains about one half of the printed octavo volume, from the 'beginning to the end of page 173a, and should be carefully preserved, as it demonstrates the genuineness of the work: the "editor of which, as appears from the attestation of archbishop King prefixed to the printed edition, knew nothing of any "MS. copy of it existing in lord Clarendon's own handwriting. "J. D."

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The transcript is thus labelled: "His grace the duke of "Ormond's papers." And on another leaf, in the handwriting of lord Clarendon : Quis nescit primam esse historiæ legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat, deinde ne quid veri non audeat.-Cicero de Oratore.

OXFORD, 1849.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION,

LOND, 1720.

THAT the author of these following memoirs was the great earl of Clarendon, the writer of that incomparable history of the great Rebellion, the zealous defender of the Church of England, in his Remarks on Hobbes's Politics, his Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet against the furious attacks of Serenus Cressy, and his plea for his lawful sovereign Charles the First, of glorious memory, a [Paragraph 111, line 3 of this edition.]

against the infamous scandals cast upon him by a crew of hardened and graceless rebels, will appear to any one who with judgment compares the style of those several pieces together; there is the same smartness, the same impartiality, the same spirit of Christianity runs through them all, and they were all written with the noblest design in the world.

His duty being paid to the memory of his royal master, whose defence could he better undertake than his, who had been one of the greatest and one of the most faithful and loyal subjects in the British world; one who had filled the place he held with that sufficiency, that steadiness and indefatigability, as well as with that wonderful address, inimitable patience, and honest policy, which might perhaps be found in a Parmenio, a Hannibal, a Zamoski, a Farneze, a Wentworth, a Hopton, and some few others, whose gallant actions fill the unblushing records of fame, but in the present age may be sought for everywhere in vain.

Honest loyalty, untainted with either popish or fanatic principles, had been for many ages so inseparably annexed to the family of the Botelers, that merit only had raised them to the titles of earl, marquis, and at last of duke of Ormond: they had been always faithful to the crown of England, always active in its service, against the tumultuating and too easily rebelling Irish their countrymen; and this great man, in whose vindication my lord Clarendon writes, had suffered all the scandal and obloquy, all the abuses and affronts, and all the losses of his mighty fortunes, both from papists and enthusiastic rebels, which madness or malice could inflict upon him; yet neither could the rage of infatuated Roman bigots, nor the heavy menaces of prevailing and successful rebels, nor the decoys or wheedles of the children of disobedience shock his faith in the least, or make him deviate from the rules of honour and conscience, or loyalty, or persuade him to betray the trust his gracious master had put into his hands, to save his own stake, or to secure his precipitating fortune.

When the insatiable malice of two rebellious houses of parliament had forced that excellent prince Charles the First to sacrifice that admirable minister of state, the lord Strafford, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to their Moloch of discontent and then brooding villainy; the affairs of Ireland were in a dangerous condition, the Irish army ordered to be disbanded, the

transporting of them into the service of other princes, the best way to prevent their doing mischief at home, forbidden; the king under a necessity of making one his lieutenant who was no way competent for the charge, and yet hindered by various artifices from sending him. These things compelled his majesty to depute the marquis of Ormond, as the fittest person in that whole kingdom, to take care of all affairs there, till the lieutenant could personally attend his office; for that compassionate prince's heart bled with his poor bleeding protestant subjects, the rescue of whom, though committed to the care of our pretended patriots, that they might have no negligence to be complained of on the king's part, being in plain terms deserted, the Irish rebels permitted to go on murdering and destroying the poor protestants with impunity, and indeed without any opposition, but what was made with the weak and ill-accoutred, but the admirable vigilance and conduct of the marquis of Ormond.

Who were the first beginners of those barbarous murders and horrid massacres committed in that kingdom is easily determined, by comparing the accounts on both sides in the Appendix; but whoever began them, perhaps no age or nation in the world ever endured so terrible a carnage as that miserable kingdom then, when it was a literal Aceldama, and the streams of blood rising every day higher. The lords justices of Ireland, who have given us an imperfect and very partial account of transactions there, seem to have taken proper measures to exasperate the natives against the English transplanted thither, as if they were so secure of baffling the rebels when they pleased, that they wished they might go on unchecked for a while, that the forfeited lands might be the more, and the nation attain to peace only by the vastness of the desolation; and of all this, their own account of their own management gives too many and too observable intimations.

What could be the reason else why the lords justices should desire but twenty copies of those proclamations, by which the Irish then in arms were declared rebels, with all the promises of goodness to such as returned in due time to their obedience to their sovereign, and all agreeable menaces to the obstinate; as if they were afraid the poor wretches should be too well apprised of their hopes and of their danger; and yet when the king sent them double more than what they desired, the

skeleton of a factious rout in the English parliament could charge their sovereign with that fear, as if he had been unwilling to fix the name of rebels upon those barbarous murderers; doubtless it would be hard to give a satisfactory reason for so base a juggle, unless matters were managed by the lords justices in concert with the rebels of England by that stratagem, to enhance the rebellion, and to render the best of princes odious to his too little considering subjects.

However the lords justices behaved themselves as to the civil concerns, the army under the marquis of Ormond, how inconsiderable soever it was, held the rebels at bay; and when his dear master's interest sunk beneath the amazing success of the English rebels, he, according to those instructions he received from his master, endeavoured a cessation of arms, since a victory over the rebels, without men or money or ammunition, was infeasible; that at least the poor protestants might have some time to breathe, and the return of the Irish to their duty to their prince might at least amuse, and give a check to the progress of the English rebels, and might in some measure have atoned for the innocent blood they had shed.

None could apply him to this work with more prudence or industry than the marquis, nor was the state of things at that time capable of any turn more advantageous either to prince or people; but it was an attempt which the devil and wicked men could not think of with patience.

Those who were in the interest of the English rebels fell foul upon this great man, as if he had been one ready to betray the protestant cause to the popish Irish, and were all for carrying on the war, though the lords justices themselves had sufficiently informed them of the impossibility of doing so, in the midst of all the necessities the few troops on foot in Ireland then laboured under; and they were so far from furnishing that little army with what they wanted, that both men, money, and ammunition, pretendedly got together for that important service, were made use of to strengthen and carry on the unnatural rebellion against their lawful sovereign at home; but they were so apprehensive of the marquis's wisdom, valour, and conduct, that they were frequent in their attempts to draw him from his dear master's service, either to their own, or to a quiet retirement to foreign parts. All which attempts proving vain, they endeavoured to