Naseby put an end to his prospects of victory. Henceforth it was hoped that instead of admitting the Catholics as allies, he might rely upon them as on his sole dependence. In his letters, also, to the queen, which the parliament seized and published, there were passages which showed a disposition to deceive the Irish. Rinuccini offered to visit the queen publicly as nuncio, knowing that she could not so receive him without a violation of English law, and an acknowledgment of the insurgent government to which he was accredited. He was expressly ordered by Panfilio to object to a private interview, on the ground that he could not uncover his head to a queen, while it seems to have been known that the queen could not receive him without that mark of respect. Their indirect negotiations could not lead to any result. The queen wanted aid for her husband, and wished to take refuge herself in Ireland. The nuncio would grant no assistance, except on terms offensive to the king's adherents in England, and he shared the determination of his court to avoid the embarrassment of the queen's presence on the scene of his mission. They took leave of each other by message with mutual politeness, and with permanent feelings of mutual hostility. It was not till the middle of October, 1645, that Rinuccini at last set sail from Rochelle on board the S. Pietro, a frigate which he had bought at Nantes. He was accompanied by the Secretary Bellings, who, as the nuncio says, had been so much alarmed at his appointment that he could not speak for two days; he also brought with him, or sent a few days before him, arms and ammunition for 2000 or 3000 men, and from 15,000l. to 20,000/. in money. His account of the voyage is highly edifying and entertaining. They had been three days at sea, when they saw a vessel in chase of them, which proved to be that of Plunket, an active partisan of the parliament. The pressure of the danger, he says, caused an incredible change in our vessel. The Irish, and especially Signor Bellings, took to their arms, and resolved to fight to the lastemploying themselves meanwhile in clearing the decks, getting the guns loose, and putting the non-combatants out of the way in a corner. The archbishop himself was in bed hopelessly sick-the Italians of his suite engaged themselves ('con molta mia edificazione') in prayer. After chasing them for 100 miles, Plunket gave up the pursuit-the proximate reason being a fire which broke out in his cook-room, the final cause a gilt image of St. Peter, which combined on board the ship which bore his name the functions of figure-head and tutelary deity. It had, indeed, already occurred to the considerate Italians that the circumstance of meeting with the S. Pietro in the Loire, was an augury that' the Head of the church, on whom all missions depend, and who Mission of Rinuccini as Papal Nuncio. 9 inspired our lord his holiness to set on foot and arrange this of mine, had also willed to conduct it to an end, and to show, when occasion offered, how weak are the forces of Hell in comparison with the authority of the Keys.' It is painful to think that subsequently S. Pietro or his image, brought the nuncio into serious difficulties; for the ship having been employed by himself or his agents in a privateering or piratical speculation, and having brought a Spanish prize into Rochelle, the agent of Spain in Ireland seized upon the goods and money of the mission as a compensation, and it was only with great difficulty that Rinuccini secured the ship itself for his return to France. On the 21st of October, he landed on the coast of Kerry at the mouth of the river Kenmare, in the midst of marvellous coincidences and pious associations. On that very day, the church of Fermo was wont to celebrate the feast of St. Mabilia, whose scull was one of its treasures-the saint was one of the 11,000 virgins,* and we believe,' ('per alcune non leggiere congetture') that she was an Irishwoman. Still more fortunately on the 22nd the same church celebrates the martyrdom of St. Philip, Bishop of Fermo, and, therefore, I am bound to believe that my great predecessor has thought fit to conduct me himself to the post appointed me by the vicar of God.' The Irish regretted the inconvenience of landing on a desert shore, instead of at Waterford; but the worthy prelate was pleased with the opportunity of first declaring his apostolic mission to shepherds, and of taking up his residence in a stable. A few days afterwards he arrived at Kilkenny, where he was received with every mark of respect by the supreme council, and the whole of the Catholic body. 6 The peace with Ormond was still unconcluded, but within a few months the state of the negotiations had been greatly affected by the arrival in Ireland of the Earl of Glamorgan, son of the Marquis of Worcester, and afterwards first Duke of Beaufort. The extraordinary powers in virtue of which he tendered to the Catholics concessions hitherto unprecedented, have been recorded and discussed by every writer on the history of the time. It is enough to say that he produced letters with the king's sign manual and under his private signet, by which Charles promised, on the word of a king and a Christian, to make good, to all intents and purposes, whatever he should perform; and although you exceed what law can warrant, or any powers of ours extend to, as not knowing what have need of, yet it being for our service, we oblige ourself, not only to give you our pardon, but to maintain the same with all our might and power. From subsequent events there can be no doubt that the king had privately agreed with Glamorgan, that he should be at liberty to disavow him, if necessary, and you • We presume, from the privilege of having a day to herself in the calendar, that St. Mabilia held high rank in this celebrated female army. that the use of the private seal, and the irregularity of the entire transaction, were intended to leave a loophole to escape from any concessions inconvenient to fulfil which the agent might find it expedient to make. By virtue of his commission Glamorgan, who was himself a zealous Catholic, undertook to secure to the Catholics the abolition of the penal laws and the possession of all churches not actually occupied by Protestants. The confederates were to send 10,000 men under his command to the assistance of Charles in England, and Glamorgan was to bind himself by oath not to act with his army, till the king had actually secured the performance of the treaty. The engagements on both sides were to be secret, even from Ormond himself; and although no man could fail to see the insecurity of an arrangement, in which the agent and servant of one party was the only guarantee for the performance of the stipulations required by the other, the eagerness for peace, and the difficulty of concluding it, were so great, that the agreement had been made two months before Rinuccini's arrival, and a vote passed by the assembly, for levying the 10,000 men. To add to the complication and difficulty of the transaction, when the Archbishop of Tuam was killed at the siege of Sligo in the month of October, the Scotch found on his person an account of all that had passed, and shortly afterwards transmitted it to the English parliament. The Catholics were now in the anomalous condition of an alliance with the king through his private agent, and of suspended hostility with him in the person of his lord-lieutenant. It seems impossible that the promoters of Glamorgan's treaty can have intended it to take effect before the conclusion of peace with Ormond; but the advocates of peace could now point to the secret conditions in favour of religion as a security for the claims which the viceroy refused to concede. Their opponents, who had with difficulty opposed a treaty which made no mention of religion, were in some measure disarmed, though not satisfied, by the apparent acceptance of their demands by the king: but the division of opinions lay deeper than the immediate occasion, and the minority had forces in reserve far more than proportionate to their strength in the assembly and the council. The nuncio threw an additional weight into their scale. He had been made personally responsible for his opposition to the peace: but his instructions from Rome were clear and decided. He was ordered to obstruct a peace with Ormond, except on condition that the church should be secured in all its splendour, and that all future viceroys should be Catholic; and the want of sufficient security was represented to him as a sufficient reason for discountenancing Glamorgan's negotiation. In his original instructions he had been told always to associate the interests of religion with the maintenance of the king; but the royal cause was less than a secondary Mission of Rinuccini as Papal Nuncio. 11 consideration in the plans of the Vatican. His high dignity, and the supplies which he brought, had sufficient influence with the council to induce them to delay the conclusion of the treaty. In the meantime he employed himself in calculating his strength, and making himself acquainted with the condition of the different parties. The assembly being formed on the model of a parliament, represented the rank and property of the kingdom, which were for the most part in the possession of the old English inhabitants. United as they were for the present with the old Irish, and connected with them by religion and by language, their wishes and objects were nevertheless wholly different. They had risen against intolerable oppression, and they had no choice but to fight to the last against the popular party in England, which included all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland in hatred so indiscriminate, that it had lately caused an act to be passed forbidding quarter to be given to any Irish papist. But their loyalty to the king had never been shaken, and as far as the laity were concerned, it is probable that no class in the three kingdoms was so free from bigotry and religious animosity. When the restoration of the ancient church was in agitation, the tolerant and moderate spirit of the old English gentry was strongly supported by their unwillingness to restore the impropriations of church property which their ancestors had not scrupled to receive from sacrilegious kings. It was in vain that the nuncio promised them fair compositions and easy confirmation of their titles-knowing that the rights of the church were immortal, while her agreements and promises were subject to contingencies, they were contented to abide by their wrongful possession, and by the security of English law. The indigenous Irish had refused or had been unable to obtain any benefit from the secularised church property, their devotion to Catholicism was a more active principle, and they too had titles to enforce. Six entire counties had been confiscated by James I., on the plea of Tyrone's imputed rebellion, and victory alone could restore them to the owners, as neither king nor parliament would ever consent to dispossess the intruding colonists. Neither did they owe or feel attachment to the English crown. For four hundred years from the conquest they had borne to the English the relation which the Red Indians of the present day bear to the Anglo-Americans; and since they had ceased to be outlaws they had supported a long civil war, and suffered the penalties of a rebellion which possibly never took place. They had commenced the present war alone; they formed the greater "Of the whole hundred that were designed for seizing the castle of Dublin, there was not so much as one person of British blood, extraction, or name amongst them.'-Earl of Castlehaven's Memoirs. part of the population and of the soldiery; and they saw with anger that their confederates directed their policy without sharing in their feelings or objects. Their interest and their habitual feelings of reverence alike led them to seek support against the government, and guidance for themselves, in the powerful body of the clergy. 6 The priesthood have sometimes been indiscriminately classed with the old Irish, as the determined opposers of peace: but Rinuccini's letters show sufficiently the difficulty which he found in uniting them in opposition to Ormond. His instructions and his disposition tended to changes within the church, as well as to external action for the restoration of its power. He had to establish the canonical jurisdiction of Rome; to procure the reception of the decrees of the Council of Trent; to reform and regulate the monastic orders; and, above all, to restore the splendour and publicity of the ecclesiastical ceremonies. In every point he came in collision with interests and habits, which confirmed a widely spread feeling of opposition to his more important political measures. The older bishops, he complains, accustomed to perform their few functions in secret and without inconvenience or interference, make small account of the splendour and magnificence of religion, foreseeing that it may involve them in great expenses, and always doubting whether they will be able to maintain it, either through new arrangements of the kingdom, or through the necessary diversion of their revenues to the necessities of war. Consequently they display almost a repugnance to submit themselves to the proper dresses and ceremonies, being almost all in the habit of celebrating the offices as ordinary priests, and of performing, for example, the sacrament of confirmation not only without mitre and vestments, but almost in a secular dress; and, therefore, they also would not be unwilling to satisfy themselves with the concession by the king and the marquis of the free exercise of their functions even in secret, so as to save as they believe the substance of the faith, and not to involve themselves in any difficulty.' The regular clergy were still less to be depended upon. As missionaries they were in possession of various ecclesiastical privileges, which were in danger from the immediate interference of Rome; and as through the operation of the penal laws they had been prevented for the most part from residing in their convents, and from observing the monastic dress and rules, many of them had lived as chaplains in the houses of the nobility and gentry, and had adopted the habits and opinions of men of the world: a large proportion retained the hereditary loyalty of the old English families to which they belonged, and the Jesuits, who were most strongly opposed to the nuncio, may perhaps have been influenced |