The Rebels of Ireland (41 page)

But here in Ireland, there was now a problem of a different kind. The Confederation had been successful. Ormond and Inchiquin were both pinned down, and Owen Roe O'Neill, the dashing Irish prince, had scored a stunning victory over Monro and his Scots up in Ulster.

“Now is our chance,” O'Byrne had told his wife, “to sweep down upon Dublin and take it. Then we could probably drive the Protestants out of the strongholds of Ulster.”

But nothing had happened.

Partly the problem was the vanity of generals: Irish O'Neill and Old English Preston refused to take orders from each other. They could hardly even be persuaded to act together. But behind this lay a deeper rift, in the heart of the Confederation. The Old English still wanted to drive a tough bargain with King Charles. “Better him than a Presbyterian Parliament,” they said. And Sir Phelim had taken this view. O'Neill and his Irish friends were more radical. “Let's kick the Protestants out once and for all, and their king too, and run Ireland ourselves,” they declared.

Dashing Owen Roe O'Neill: an Irishman after his own heart. Brian O'Byrne knew where his secret sympathies lay. For six weeks now, he had been planning to desert Sir Phelim and attach himself to Owen Roe O'Neill.

But it was Jane O'Byrne who answered Father Lawrence.

“We are with Sir Phelim, of course.”

O'Byrne said nothing. Father Lawrence smiled.

“You are loyal to your family. But there is a higher authority than the family. I mean Holy Church.”

“Not everyone agrees with the Nuncio,” Jane remarked.

“He is harsh,” Father Lawrence acknowledged. “But unfortunately, he is also right.”

Archbishop Rinuccini had not been in Ireland long before his
clear Latin mind saw the weak logic of the Old English position. “For a start,” he pointed out, “King Charles is a heretic whom nobody trusts. Secondly, he is never going to give you what you want.”

Since its formation, the Confederation had evolved quite an impressive list of demands that included not only the freedom to practise the Catholic religion, and equal legal status, but the return of many Catholic lands. They also wanted the Irish Parliament to be independent. In effect, Charles would be king of a separate country. “We know we won't get all we want,” the Old English party told the Nuncio.

“You won't get any of it,” he'd replied. “King Charles would like to use Irish troops against his enemies. But he can't grant your Catholic freedom, because his own Protestant Parliament will never let him. Your entire position rests upon a fallacy.” Yet since a Protestant Parliament would give them even less than the king, they countered, what were they to do? “Sever your connection with England,” he told them. “You've no alternative.” And who would protect them from England after that? they had demanded. For the English Parliament would always see an independent Catholic Ireland as a threat. “You will defend yourselves,” he ordered. “But help will be forthcoming. From France, or from Spain. From Rome itself.”

They were the Old English of Ireland, they reminded him. Their families had been loyal to the English monarchy for centuries. “This is hard for us.”

“If you are Catholics,” the Nuncio had replied, “your faith will come first.”

Now, backed by Owen Roe O'Neill, the Nuncio had taken over the Supreme Council. He was even threatening to excommunicate anyone who opposed his uncompromising view. The Old English, and Irish moderates like Sir Phelim, were still refusing to go along with him. The Confederation was split.

“And what does he want in the end?” Jane demanded. “Are we to drive every Protestant out of Ireland?”

“The Protestants of Ireland are a mixed group,” the Jesuit replied. “There are men like my cousin Doyle, who has no strong
religious feelings, and who would probably change back to Catholicism as easily as his father turned Protestant. There are the planters, some of them strongly Protestant. At the end of the day, they are adventurers. They'll either grin and bear it, or they'll sell up and leave. As for the government men at Dublin Castle, they are the most strident.” He smiled. “But my guess is they'd run like rabbits.” He paused. “The real problem is elsewhere.”

“You mean Ulster.”

“I do indeed. The Scots. They are another matter entirely. Look at the mighty Covenant they made in Scotland. They are implacable for their faith. They would not tolerate an English Prayer Book; they will surely never tolerate a Catholic government. The others will crumble, but the Presbyterians of Ulster will not.”

“We'll have to drive them out, then?”

“I think so.”

“Where would they go?”

“Back to Scotland perhaps. Or to America.”

Father Lawrence left them after that. When he had gone, Jane O'Byrne turned to her husband.

“When I think of all that you owe my kinsman—the friendship and promotion he has given you—I hope you do not think of deserting Sir Phelim.” Her eyes were fixed upon his in a hard stare. She was not afraid of him in the least.

He said nothing. He had always done as he pleased with women before. To be nervous of his wife was a new experience.

Nor did Brian O'Byrne make any move in the weeks that followed. Christmas came, and the month of January. Owen Roe O'Neill had gone to winter quarters anyway, so there was nothing to be done.

It was in the month of February, when he was up at Rathconan, that the news came.

“Lord Ormond has handed Dublin over to the English Parliament. He's leaving Ireland.” He gave the news to his wife himself.

“But that's impossible. Ormond is the king's man.”

“He's the king's man still. But he feared he couldn't hold Dublin. He's gone to King Charles. They hope to gather more forces and return. Meanwhile, the English Parliament men are sending troops over to strengthen the garrison.”

“The Parliament men have Dublin?” The Puritans?

Sir Phelim and the Old English, it seemed, had miscalculated.

Jane O'Byrne looked at her husband with a new uncertainty in her eyes.

“So what will become of us now?”

As Doctor Pincher considered the world in the Year of Our Lord 1647, he knew that God's Providence alone had allowed him to live so long, and he was grateful. When Dublin was handed over to the English Parliament, he was seventy-five, and one of the oldest men in the city. Considering his age, his health was good. Perhaps, he thought with some secret pride, I shall outlive them all. He was determined, at least, to live to see the Protestant cause triumph.

And to see his nephew well settled.

Soon after the start of the war between King Charles and his Parliament, Barnaby Budge had written to say that he had taken up arms against the king and joined the Roundheads, as the Parliamentary army was nicknamed. Some time later, Barnaby had written to tell him about the new force that was being formed—a model army filled with godly men, ready to train themselves to new heights of discipline. Led by their generals, Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, this New Model Army had soon swept all before it. Subsequent letters had described their military actions, and Doctor Pincher had experienced elation and also some fear.

“I pray that God may deliver my nephew to us safely,” he confessed more than once to Tidy's wife, to which she had comfortingly replied, “Oh, Sir, I'm sure He will.”

During that year of 1647, the signs were certainly encouraging.
Parliament sent battle-hardened troops and seasoned commanders to Dublin. The Confederate forces in Leinster and Munster were now driven back; and when Owen Roe O'Neill made a move towards Dublin, he was soon chased away. Equally gratifying, the Protestant city authorities had made life so unpleasant for them that several prominent Catholic merchant families, including that of Walter Smith, decided to leave. Pincher chanced to meet Smith on the day of his departure, and asked him where he proposed to live now.

“With my brother-in-law Orlando Walsh,” Walter replied. Though Ormond's Protestant troops at the Walsh estate were under the control of the Parliament men in Dublin now, the arrangements protecting Orlando had still been continued. “At least your Protestant troops will protect us,” the merchant remarked wryly.

Only one development caused Doctor Pincher concern. It was something which he would never have foreseen, and it took place in England. It worried him so much that he wrote to Barnaby about it.

“The army,” he began, “seems to forget that it is the servant of government, not the master.”

There was no question that Doctor Pincher was right. The Puritan army, having fought their way to victory, had grown impatient with the Presbyterian gentlemen of the English Parliament, who sat in comfort and were still trying to strike a deal with the fallen king. “Put him on trial,” they demanded. They had swept into London and overawed the citizens; and Oliver Cromwell had sent one of his most trusted young officers, Joyce, to grab the king and transfer him to army custody. If King Charles in prison was still nominally king, and Parliament still sat, it was the army which was really taking charge.

But what shocked Pincher were some of their other views.

If King Charles's Church, with its bishops and its ceremonies, seemed no better than papism to most Puritans, one might argue about what should replace it. But one thing was certain: there must be order. The gentlemen in Parliament and the solid London merchants now favoured an English version of the Presbyterian Church.
Instead of clergymen, each congregation would choose its elders, and they in turn would elect a central council, whose authority would be absolute. This would be the new, national Church.

But while they had been risking their lives together, turning the world upside down, the army men had been discussing such matters, too, and they had come to quite different conclusions. They had had enough of the Parliament men. If they could fight the authority of an anointed king, why should they bend the knee to Parliament? “By what authority,” they demanded, “would a Parliament tell us how to worship God? God speaks to every man directly.” So long as they were godly and not papist, the congregations should be free to follow their own consciences and set up independent chapels in any manner they liked.

Such doctrines were infectious. Pincher discovered it one morning when he encountered Faithful Tidy. He had been a little disappointed that since leaving Trinity College, the young man had scarcely ever come to see him; but as Faithful was now assisting the Chapter Clerk, they met from time to time. The Parliament men in London had already made clear that they intended to legislate a Presbyterian Church for Ireland, too, and Pincher was glad to hear it. For if those army fellows were given their way, he remarked to Faithful, there'd be chaos—a breakdown of all religious and moral order.

“Yet when you think of it,” Faithful had answered easily, “isn't that just what the Catholics said when the Protestants challenged Rome's authority?” He shrugged. “What's the difference?”