CHAP. LX. 1658 Anne Murray's preparations. St. James's, in order to accustom his guardians to his absence from the room where he had usually been found at that late hour. In the meanwhile, Anne Murray, a sister of the well-known Will Murray, had ordered a tailor to make for the boy a lady's dress. The order almost led to a discovery of the plot, as the tailor was startled by the measurements given to him. He had never, he said, made a dress in which the size of the waist was so large in proportion to the lady's height. The tailor, however, kept counsel, and, on the evenApril 21. ing of the 21st, the Duke, saying that he was going off to his game, went into the garden, and opening the gate with a key with which he had been supplied, stepped out into the park, where Bamfield awaited him with a cloak and wig. Thus partially disguised, the Duke was taken in a coach to a house in which Anne Murray completed the metamorphosis, clothing him in a 'mixed mohair of a light hair-colour and black,' and a scarlet under-petticoat. The escape effected. The Duke conveyed to the Netherlands. In this guise, making as Anne Murray thought a very pretty girl, the boy, still accompanied by Bamfield, who now assumed the character of a brother, took passage in a barge to Gravesend, where the pair found a vessel awaiting them, and put to sea before orders had been given to stop the ports. Two days later they landed at Rammekens, safe from all pursuit. Yet the Duke continued to keep up his disguise after all necessity for it was at an end. On the night after his arrival he shocked the hostess of the inn in which he slept by rejecting the services of her maids when he undressed, and by insisting on occupying the same room as Bamfield.1 1 Account of the Duke of York's escape, Clar. St. P. ii. App. xlvii.; Autobiography of Lady Anne Halkett, 20. For the date of the escape see L.J. x. 219. THE DUKE OF YORK'S ESCAPE. 345 CHAP. LX. 1648 ter's house increased. The Houses, as soon as they learnt what had happened, issued orders to transfer some of the servants of the Duke of York to his brother the Duke The Duke of Gloucester, now only in his ninth year, and did of Glouces everything in their power to increase the dignity of hold the child's position, as if to point him out as a possible occupant of the throne now that his brother was no longer available. For the present, however, the time was unpropitious to such designs, as the signs of approaching war were growing clearer every day. Before the end of April, it was evident beyond dispute that the question was not how the Houses should dispose of the throne, but whether it was to be at their disposal. gloomy enough, and news from Ireland. from The news from Scotland was Bad news scarcely less gloomy was the Ireland. 346 СНАР. LXI. 1646 Nov.-Dec. Ormond and the federates. CHAPTER LXI. THE EVE OF THE SECOND CIVIL WAR. IN the winter of 1646, Ormond, finding that the English Parliament refused to accept his surrender of the Lord Lieutenant's office on his own terms,1 had made a fresh effort to conclude an alliance which Irish Con- might unite the English Royalists with more moderate spirits amongst the Irish Confederates, on the basis of toleration under the King's authority, against Rinuccini on the one hand and the Puritans on the other. On behalf of this scheme Digby, as the King's Secretary of State, and Clanricarde, as a loyal Catholic nobleman, combined in carrying on a negotiation with A negotia Preston, the commander of the army of the Confederates in Leinster. Preston, jealous of the influence of O'Neill, and never altogether at his ease in carrying out the Nuncio's behests, listened for a time to their invitations, but in the end broke away from them, and on December 22 signed a declaration throwing the blame of the rupture on the insufficiency of Ormond's offers.3 After this Rinuccini's triumph seemed complete. When the General Assembly met on January 10, 1647, he consented to the liberation 1 See vol. ii. 576. tion with Preston. 2 The correspondence relating to this negotiation is printed in Carte's Ormond, vi. 453-483. 3 Preston to Rinuccini, Dec. 10, Lord Leicester's MS. fol. 1,448; Preston to Ormond, Dec. 19, Carte's Ormond, vi. 483; Preston's Declaration, Dec. 22, Gilbert's Hist. of the Irish Confederation, vi. IRISH PARTIES. 347 СНАР. LXI. 1647 General assembly at Kil. Feb. 2. condemns with of the members of the Supreme Council whom he had arrested in September,' being now strong enough to obtain the consent of the Assembly to a condemnation of the peace made by the Supreme Council with Ormond, and a general acceptance of his own prin- kenny, ciples. Every member of the Assembly swore not to accept any peace which did not grant full liberty to the the peace Roman Catholic religion in the whole of Ireland, the Ormond. restoration of all jurisdictions and privileges possessed by the clergy in the days of Henry VII., the abrogation of all laws hostile to the Roman Catholic religion, and the restitution of all churches and benefices not only in the districts now held by the Confederates, but also in those which might be subsequently gained by them. A new Supreme Council was then chosen, in which the partisans of the clergy formed a decided majority.3 March May. difficulties. Rinuccini's Parliamentary success could not smooth away the real difficulties of his position. The feud Rinuccini's between Preston and O'Neill was still unappeased. The clergy could not trust Preston, and the brutalities of O'Neill's Ulstermen exasperated the laity of the South. The Nuncio was moreover irritated at the anxiety shown, even by the clergy, to maintain in all temporal matters their allegiance to a heretic king." 1 See vol. ii. 544. 3 Rinuccini, Nunziatura, 190-209, 472. 2 Ib. 537. 4 Rinuccini to Panzirolo, May 28, Nunziatura, 229. 5 "Nel giuramento rinnovato in quest' Assemblea vedrà V. E. che il primo punto è la fedeltà verso il Rè, siccome anco i Vescovi senz' alcuna difficoltà hanno giurato. Questa cosa è tanto inviscerata in ogni sorte di persona anco ecclesiastica, che quando il Nunzio si facesse alcun minimo motivo, enterebbe subito in sospetto d' aver altri fini che di semplice nunziatura, come i mali affetti anco senza questo cercano alle volte di persuadere." Rinuccini to Panfilio, March 7, Ib. 205. The Nuncio goes on to say that, whenever the sending of 10,000 men to England was talked of, he took care to express his approbation of the proposal only in general terms. CHAP. LXI. 1647 March. Mission of Winter Grant. June 7. Michael Jones in Dublin. The reluctance of the nobility to submit to the domination of the clergy was still more strongly marked; whilst the money which should have been sent from Rome had not yet arrived. Under these circumstances the Confederate Catholics missed the opportunity of seizing Dublin, which was offered them by the strife between the Parliament and army in England. Whilst Rinuccini was chafing under the restraints which hindered the creation of a Papal Ireland, the Queen was doing what she could to make Ireland Royalist. In March one of her agents, Winter Grant, urged Ormond to retract the word which he had given to Parliament and to form a league with Rinuccini in defence of the rights of the Crown. Grant passed from Kilkenny to Dublin and from Dublin to Kilkenny, but it was not in his power to induce either Ormond to bend before the Nuncio's terms, or the Nuncio to accept Ormond's doctrine of the supremacy of the Royal over the ecclesiastical power.1 The precious time thus frittered away could never be recovered by the Confederates. On June 7 Michael Jones, appointed by the English Parliament to the command in Leinster,2 landed in Dublin accompanied by Parliamentary commissioners, and, what was of far greater importance, by 1,400 foot and 600 horse. Ormond, after a protracted negotiation, had no choice but to surrender unconditionally to the English Parliament. On July 28 he delivered surrenders over the sword of office to the commissioners, and a few days later sailed for England. His policy of July 28. Ormond the sword. 1 Notices on Winter Grant's mission are scattered over the Carte MSS. of the time, and Rinuccini's Nunziatura. 2 See p. 46. |