The Irish rebellion: or, An history of the beginnings and first progresse of the general rebellion raised within the kingdom of Ireland, upon the three and twentieth day of October, in the year, 1641.: Together vvith the barbarous cruelties and bloody massacres which ensued thereupon. / By Sir Iohn Temple Knight. Master of the Rolles, and one of his Majesties most honourable Privie Councell within the kingdom of Ireland.

These are the means proposed by these Catholick Remonstrants, for reducing of the Kingdom to peace, these the great obstructions they would have removed, & the cōstant Counsel they would have follow∣ed, in setling the tranquility & present government of this Land; so as we need seek no further evidence, nor make any more curious enqui∣ries into the secret causes of their first rising: we have here enough out of their owne mouths, to resolve the most scrupulous unbeleever of their first motives to this Rebellion. And now for the matter of Religion, howsoever I am very confident they ever really intended the re-establishment of that of the Church of Rome, with all the Rites and Ceremonies thereof, together with the utter extirpation of all of the reformed profession: Yet considering the large indul∣gence and free liberty they universally enjoyed at that time in the full exercise of that their Religion throughout all the parts of the Kingdome; it may be most justly suspected (how zealously soever they now obtrude it) that this was onely the bare outward couver∣ture,

made use of by the principall undertakers, to draw on a poore ignorant superstitious people to sacrifice their lives in this quarrell. Neither can it by any reasonable man be ever presumed, that such persons as made no conscience of committing treason, so many cru∣ell murders, and all other kind of abominable villanies, not to be paralleld in any other Country, could be drawne meerly out of con∣science towards God, to act these for the regaining of the free and publike profession of their Religion.

This certainly was no more the true and main cause of their ta∣king up Armes, then the redresse of their pretended grievances, whereunto his Majesty had condiscended, and out of his in∣clinations for their present reliefe, had given much more satis∣faction to their Agents lately in England, then ever they could in any other time expect to receive or hope to enjoy. Yet we see how little effect those great graces brought over not above two moneths before this Rebellion brake out, took among them: for presently after the return of their Agents with them, this most detestable con∣spiracy, which had been long in hatching, began to work, and to be put in execution. And if we shall consider their maine designe and chiefe ends therein, as they appear in their first principles, or will give credit to the severall speeches and passages that we meet with among the Rebels, in the very beginning of their breaking out; as also to severall other testimonies that have since privately fallen from some particular persons among them, we must beleeve that their designe cleerly was to destroy and root out all the British and Protestants planted within this Kingdom, to cut off the Soveraignty of the Crowne of England, and so to deliver themselves from their long continued subjection to the English Nation.

But to come to one maine particular, taken into debate by the prime Movers and chiefe incendiaries in this horrid Rebellion, they had a most serious consultation what course to take with most safety to themselves, for the disburthening of the Kingdome of those mul∣titudes of English, which were in very great numbers dispersedly planted among them. Some were of opinion that they should spare their lives, not render themselves guilty of the spilling of so much innocent blood, but that they should seize on their goods, ex∣pell them their habitations, and after banishing them out of the Kingdome, proceed as the Spaniards did with many hundred thou∣sands of the Moors, whom, as it were in a moment, they cleered out of their Dominions. Others there were who much opposed this kind of lenity and moderation, remonstrating the high inconveniences

which would inevitably redound to themselves thereby. First, that the British were in so great numbers, as they could not either by dis∣arming, imprisoning, or any other meanes possible, ever hope to se∣cure them from mischiefe: Then that if they onely expelled them out of the Kingdome, they would remain still as so many fit in∣struments to be entertained in England, and from thence returned backe full of revengefull thoughts to recover their losses; that by their long experience and knowledge in the Country they would be better guides, more deeply engaged to prosecute the Warre; and having their bodies inured to this Climate, would prove much more able Souldiers then any new men that could be raised, or any other∣wayes brought over. How they determined this particular I shall not undertake to declare; my intelligence failes me, and I am able to deliver no more of the result of this great Councell then ap∣peares in the bloody effects and horrid executions acted in the first beginnings of their Rebellion. It is most probable they came to no positive conclusion, but left the chiefe Actors in this particular at large, to doe as should seem good to themselves. We finde their first proceedings and outrages committed upon the English very various and much differing in severall places; some onely stripping and ex∣pelling of them; others, murdering Man, Woman and Childe without mercy. But this is certain, and of most unquestionable truth, that by one means or other, they resolved universally to root all the British and Protestants out of Ireland. And that these were the first thoughts and bitter fruits of the long premeditated malicious intentions, sufficiently appeares by their Actions, as well as by their virulent expressions uttered upon their first rising, when they thought the Kingdome their own. They then said openly, that they meant to destroy the English, and that they had made a Covenant no English∣man. should set footing among them. Some of the Irish would not endure the very sound of that language, but would have pe∣nalties inflicted upon them that spake English, and all the English names of places chan∣ged into the old Irish denomi∣nations: others professed that they would not leave an En∣glish man or woman alive in the Kingdome, but that all should be gone, no not so

much as an English. Beast, or a∣ny of the breed of them. James Hallegan the Priest did read an Excommunication in the Church, which, as he alleag∣ed, came from their great Irish Metropolitane, and terrify∣ing his Parishoners therewith he told them, that from that day forth, whosoever did har∣bour or relieve any Scot, En∣glish or Welchman, or give them Almes at their doors, should be excommunicated, whereby as Master Sacheurell testifies in his Examination many were starved and dyed for want in those parts. We have it from Master Creighton, a reverend Minister, one long detained prisoner within the County of Cavan, that the Fryars ex∣horted the peopl with tears to spare none of the English; that the Irish were resolved to de∣stroy them out of the King∣dome; that they would devour (as their very word was) the seed of the English out of Ire∣land, and when they had rid them there, they would goe over into ENGLAND, and not leave the Memoriall of the ENGLISH Name under Heaven.

And so fond and vein were their imaginations, and to such a height of madnesse were they grown, as they could not terminate their thoughts in the reduction of Ireland under the power of their own Nation. But as soon as they had begun their Rebellion there, they spake confidently in all places of transporting their Armes into England, that they would send 30000 men over into that Kingdom, and that they would draw in foraign Auxiliaries thither to joyn with them; and so by a high hand establish the free exercise of the Romish Religion within that Kingdom. A Designe cer∣tainly

which the Priests and Jesuits had taken up in their own thoughts, and by their correspondencies abroad intended power∣fully to bring about, as soon as they had setled their affaires in Ire∣land. And if it had not pleased God in an extraordinay way to bring the first Plot to light, and so to blesse the weake endevours of the State here, as to enable them by the assistance of those small Forces they confusedly gathered together, to hold out till the arri∣vall of the Succours sent out of England; I leave it to every one to consider with how much advantage they might have gone on at that time towards the accomplishment of so desperate a Project. And for my selfe, I must professe that I am cleerly resolved, that had they at first overmastered the unexpected difficulties and fatall impediments they met withall at home, and possessed themselves of the Arms and Munition within the Castle of Dublin, and so flesht and blooded in the slaughter of many thousands of the English Nation, had transpor∣ted a numerous Army of Irish Rebels, and sodainly landed them in some good Port within the Kingdome of England: They would have prevailed very farre towards the miserable desolation and ruine thereof. It must be remembred in what a most unhappy discompo∣sure the affaires were at that time there; what a diseased body the State then had, and what high distempers then strongly working soone after brake out; what a strong party they might have found within, and with what great reputation they would have marched on under the glory of their late victories atchieved in Ireland, sig∣nalizing the power of their armes with such horrid cruelties and bloody butcheries, as would have wrought a strange terror among the people.

Thus we see what were the Causes and first Motives to this unna∣turall Rebellion; as likewise who were the chiefe Actors and the great instruments designed by the first Plotters to predispose the people to a readinesse to take Armes for the rooting out of the Bri∣tish Inhabitants from among them. The Preparatives being all made, the Plot in all points ripe for execution, it was carried on to the very evening before the day appointed for the taking of the Castle of Dublin without discovery. And though it pleased God to bring it then to light (as hath been declared) and so happily to dis∣appoint it in the maine Peece, yet it tooke in the Northerne parts, be∣ing that very day fully executed in most of the chiefe places of strength within the Province of Ʋlster. And whereas the Priests did long before in their publick Devotions at Masse pray for a blessing upon a great Designe they had then in hand; so now, as I have

heard, they did in many places, the very day before the breaking out of this Rebellion, give the people a dismisse at Masse, with free liberty to goe out and take possession of all their Lands, which they pretended, unjustly detained from them by the English; as also to strip, rob, and dispoyle them of all their Goods and Cattell. They had without doubt, by one meanes or other, either private or publick instructions not to leave to the English any thing that might afford the least comfort or hope of longer subsistance among them. This was the main bait used to draw on the common people; and this wrought farre more powerfully then all other perswasions, ficti∣ons or wilde chimeraes that they infused into them. It is most ap∣parant, that the prime Gentlemen in all parts, as well as the Cler∣gy, pressed them on to despoyle the English of all their Goods and Cattell, well knowing their avaricious humour and greedy desires to get them into their possession, and that they could not possi∣bly finde out any other thing that would engage them more readi∣ly to undertake, or more desperately to execute all manner of vil∣lanies, then the hopes of enjoying so rich a prey now presented un∣to them.

The people being now set at liberty, and prepossessed by their Priests with a beleefe that it was lawfull for them to rise up and de∣stroy all the Protestants, who, they told them, were worse then Dogs; that they were Devils, and served the Devill; assuring them the killing of such was a me∣ritorious act, and a rare pre∣servative against the paines of Purgatory, gathered them∣selves together in great num∣bers, assembling in severall companies through the seve∣rall parts of the Northerne Counties, with staves, sithes and pitch-forks, for at first they had not many better weapons: And so in a most confused manner, they began tumultuously to drive away at the first onely the Cattel belonging to the English, and then to break into their houses, and seize upon their goods. It is true, there were some murders committed the very first day of their rising, and some houses set on fire, but these as I conceive, were for the most part out

of private spleen, or where they had particular instructions so to doe, as they had from the Lord Mac Guire, to kill Master Arthur Champion, a Justice of Peace in the County of Fermanagh, who with severall other of his neighbours were murthered at his owne house upon the 23. of October in the morning. But certainly that which they mainly intended at first, and which they most busily employed themselves about, was the driving away the Englishmens Cattell, and possessing their goods: Wherein the common people were not the onely actors, but even the chiefe Gentlemen of the Irish in many pla∣crs, most notoriously appeared, and under plausible pretences of se∣curing their goods from the rapine and spoile of the common sort, got much peaceably into their hands: And so confident were the English of their good dealing at first, as many delivered their goods by retaile unto them, gave them particular Inventories of all they had, nay digged up such of their best things as they had hidden un∣der ground, to deposite in their custody. Much likewise they got by faire promises and deep engagements to doe them no further mischief, to suffer them, their wives and children quietly to retire and leave the Country: But others, and especially the meaner sort of people fell more rudely to work, at the very first, breaking up of their houses, and using all manner of force and violence, to make themselves masters of their goods.

And having thus seized upon all their goods and Cattell, ransackt their houses, gotten their persons under their power; the next thing they did, was to strip man, woman and child, many of them stark naked, and so to turne them out of their owne doors, not permit∣ting them in some places so much as to shelter themselves under bu∣shes, or in the Woods, and strictly prohibiting all the Irish under great penalties to give them entertainment or any kind of reliefe, as they passed on upon the high wayes. And certainly their designe in this, most notoriously appears to have bin no othen then that al such as they would not lay their hands upon, and cruelly murder in cold blood, might miserably perish of themselves through cold, nakednes and want; and therfore as fast as any of them so stripped got old rags to cover their nakednesse, they endeavoured to strip them againe and againe; as may appeare by the Examination of John Gourley, who deposeth, that some were stripped twice, some thrice, as fast as they could get any old rags to cover their nakednesse, the next Irishwomen or even the children that met them would take them off: And he and his Wife further depose, that when their house, together with the Towne of Armagh, were set on fire by the Rebels, she was stripped

of her clothes seven severall times after she got other cloths; and at length, they left her not so much as her smock or hairlace, and that she got to a place and hid her selfe in a hutch for three or four dayes, and after went to find out her children, two of which had the small Pox visibly upon them, Jurat. Novemb. 8. 1642.

How infallibly this course succeeded, and how surely they com∣passed their devillish ends hereby, is but too well known; The English leaving sufficient monuments in the Highwayes as they passed, as well as in the Towns wherein they arrived of the dismal mortality it bred among them. And for the fuller satisfaction of any one who shall doubt thereof, I have thought fit to insert these two ensuing Ex∣aminations.

James Redferne, of the County of London Derry, deposeth, that in the Towne of Coleraine, since the Rebellion began, there dyed of robbed and stripped people that fled thither for succour, many hun∣dreds, besides those of the Towne who had anciently dwelt there, and that the mortality there was such, and so great, as many thou∣sands dyed there in two dayes, and that the living, though scarce able to doe it, laid the carcases of those dead persons in great ranks, into vast and wide holes, laying them so close and thick, as if they had packed up Herrings together.

Magdalen Redman, late of the Dowris in the Kings County, Widow, being sworne and examined, deposeth and saith, That she this De∣ponent and divers other Protestants her neighbours, and amongst the rest 22. Widowes, after they were all robbed were also stript stark naked, and then they covering themselves in a house with straw, the Rebels then and there lighted the straw with fire, and threw amongst them, of purpose to burne them, where they had been burned or smothered, but that some of the Rebels more pittifull then the rest, commanded these cruell Rebels to forbeare, so as they escaped: Yet the Rebels kept and drove them naked into the wild Woods, from Tuesday untill Saturday, in frost and snow, so as the snow unmelted long lay upon some of their skins, and some of their children dyed in their armes: And when as the Deponent and the rest endeavoured to have gone away for refuge to the Burre, the cruell Rebels turned them againe, saying, they should goe towards Dublin; and when they endeavoured to goe towards Dublin, they hindred them againe, and sayd, they should goe to the Burre; and so tossed them to and fro; Yet at length, such of those poore stripped people as dyed not

before they got away out of the hands of the Rebels, escaped to the Burre, where they were harboured and relieved by one William Parsons Esquire: And yet there dyed at the Burre of those stript persons, about forty men, women and children. And this Deponent and those other stript people that survived, lived miserably at the Burre aforesaid, untill they with the rest, had quarter to come from thence to Dublin.

Jur. 7. March 1642.

• ...Doh. Watson.
• ...Will. Aldrich.

Isabel, the relict of Christopher Porter, late of Dowris in the Kings County, sworn and examined, deposeth and saith, in all the particu∣lars above mentioned as Magdalen Redman before examined, being her Neighbour.

Notes

• The re-esta∣blishment of the Romish Re∣ligion onely a pretence for the rebellion.
• All the grie∣vances of the Kingdom re∣dressed before the Rebellion brake out.
• A Consultati∣on held, whe∣ther it will be best to mur∣der, or onely to banish all the British out of Ireland.
• The Irish re∣solve to root the English out of Ireland.
• The Irish in many places killed English Cowes and Sheep meerly because they were English; in some places they cut off their legges, or tooke out a peece out of their buttocks, and so let them remain still alive. The Lord Montgarrat, Master Edward Butlar, the Baron of Logmouth went with their Forces into Munster a∣bout the beginning of the rising of the Irish there, and while they remained about Callen and Mallow they consumed no lesse then 50000. others say 100000. English Sheep, besides a great abundance of English Cattell, and such as they could not eat, yet they killed and left in great multitudes, stinking, to the great an∣noyance of the Country. This testified by Henry Cham∣part in his Examination taken before Sir Robert Meredith Knight, &c.
• James Shaw a Minister Deposeth, that after the Cessation, divers of the Rebels confessed the Priests had given them the Sacrament, upon condition they should not spare Man, Woman nor Childe that were Pro∣testants; and that he heard divers of them say, in a bragging manner, that it did them a great deal of good to wash their hands in the blood of the Protestants whom they had slain jurat. Jan. 7. 1643.
• Thomas Johnson Ʋicar of Tullah, of the Coun∣ty of Maio, deposeth, that he heard Stephen Linoh Prior of Strade, being asked if it were not lawfull to kill this Deponent because he would not goe to Masse; answered, that it was as lawfull for them to kill him, as to kill a Sheepe or a Dogge: and divers of the rebellious Souldiers told him to his face, that they would no more care to kill him, then they would doe a Pigge.
• John Addis of the County of Westmeath, Deposeth, that Robert Magohagan Priest, said to this Depo∣nant, that it was no more pitty nor conscience to take English-mens lives or goods from them, then to take a bone out of a Dogs mouth, jurat. July 21. 1642.
• The English goods presen∣ted to the Irish as a chiefe means to raise them up a∣gainst them.
• The people made beleeve by their priests that it was a Meritorious act to kill the English.
• John Parry of D••uermosh, in the County of Ar∣magh, deposeth, that O Cullan a Priest, told his Au∣ditors at Masse, that the bodies of such as died in this quarrell, should not be cold before their soules should ascend up into heaven, and that they should be free from the paines of Purgatory.
• Margaret Bromley in her Examination deposeth, that some of the Rebels would say, after their cruell but∣cheries, that they knew if themselves should now dye, their soules should goe to Heaven, and that they were glad of the revenge they had taken of the English.
• The Irish rise and first drive away all the Cattel belon∣ging to the English.
• The Irish Gen∣tlemen pos∣sesse them∣selves of the Goods belon∣ging to the En∣glish, under pretence of securing them
• The next act was to strip the English, man, woman & child stark naken, and to turn them out of their owne doores. Al manner of relief forbid∣den to the En∣glish as they passed upon the high-ways stripped and despoiled of all they had.
• The manner of stripping the English.
• The miseries and mortality it brought a∣mong them.