had been ill used by lord Montrose's army, the people in revenge fell on them, and knocked them on the head. Several persons of quality were con40 demned for being with them: and they were proceeded against both with severity and with indignities. The preachers thundered in their pulpits against all that did the work of the Lord deceitfully; and cried out against all that were for moderate proceedings, as guilty of the blood that had been shed. Thine eye shall not pity, and thou shalt not spare, were often inculcated after every execution: they triumphed with so little decency, that it gave all people very ill impressions of them. But this was not the worst effect of Lord Montrose's expedition. It lost the opportunity at Uxbridge: it alienated the Scots much from the king: it exalted all that were enemies to peace. Now they seemed to have some colour for all those aspersions they had cast on the king, as if he had been in a correspondence with the Irish rebels, when the worst tribe of them had been thus employed by him b. His affairs declined totally in England that summer and lord Hollis said to me, all was owing to lord Montrose's unhappy successes.

Antrim's

correspond

the king

and queen.

Upon this occasion I will relate somewhat conence with cerning the earl of Antrim. I had in my hand several of his letters to the king in the year 1646, writ in a very confident style: [for he was a very arrogant, as well as a very weak man.] One was somewhat particular: he in a postscript desired the king to send the inclosed to the good woman, without making any excuse for the presumption; by

b Lord Clarendon differs from all this. S.

which, as follows in the postscript, he meant his wife, the duchess of Buckingham. This made me more easy to believe a story that the earl of Essex told me he had from the earl of Northumberland: upon the restoration, in the year 1660, lord Antrim was thought guilty of so much bloodshed, that it was taken for granted he could not be included in the indemnity that was to pass in Ireland: upon this he (lord Antrim) seeing the duke of Ormond set against him, came over to London, and was lodged at Somerset House: and it was believed, that having no children, he settled his estate on Jermyn, then earl of St. Alban's: but before he came away, he had made a prior settlement in favour of his brother. He petitioned the king to order a committee of council to examine the warrants that he had acted upon. The earl of Clarendon was for rejecting the petition, as containing a high indignity to the memory of king Charles the first: and said plainly at council table, that if any person had pretended to affirm such a thing while they were at Oxford, he would either have been severely punished for it, or the king would soon have had a very thin court. But it seemed just to see what he had to say for himself: so a committee was named, of which the earl of Northumberland was the chief. He produced to them some of the king's letters: but they did not come up to a full proof. In one of them the king wrote, that he had not then leisure, 41 but referred himself to the queen's letter; and said, that was all one as if he writ himself. Upon this foundation he produced a series of letters writ by himself to the queen, in which he gave her an account of every one of these particulars that were

laid to his charge, and shewed the grounds he went on, and desired her directions to every one of these: he had answers ordering him to do as he did. This the queen-mother espoused with great zeal; and said, she was bound in honour to save him. I saw a great deal of that management, for I was then at court. But it was generally believed, that this train of letters was made up at that time in a collusion between the queen and him: so a report was prepared to be signed by the committee, setting forth that he had so fully justified himself in every thing that had been objected to him, that he ought not to be excepted out of the indemnity. This was brought first to the earl of Northumberland to be signed by him but he refused it; and said, he was sorry he had produced such warrants, but he did not think they could serve his turn; for he did not believe any warrant from the king or queen could justify so much bloodshed, in so many black instances as were laid against him. Upon his refusal, the rest of the committee did not think fit to sign the report: so it was let fall: and the king was prevailed on to write to the duke of Ormond, telling him that he had so vindicated himself, that he must endeavour to get him to be included in the indemnity. That was done; and was no small reproach to the king, that did thus sacrifice his father's honour to his mother's The origi- importunity d. Upon this the earl of Essex told me, that he had taken all the pains he could to inquire into the original of the Irish massacre, but could

nal of the

Irish mas

sacre.

d See this affair entirely cleared up by Mr. Carte in his Life of the Duke of Ormond. Bowyer. (See also the Con

tinuation of Lord Clarendon's Life, p. 127, published after Carte's work.)

never see any reason to believe the king had any accession to ite. He did indeed believe that the queen hearkened to the propositions made by the Irish, who undertook to take the government of Ireland into their hands, which they thought they could easily perform and then, they said, they would assist the king to subdue the hot spirits at Westminster. With this the plot of the insurrection began and all the Irish believed the queen encouraged it. But in the first design there was no thought of a massacre: that came in head as they were laying the methods of executing it: so, as those were managed by the priests, they were the chief men that set on the Irish to all the blood and cruelty that followed.

I know nothing in particular of the sequel of the war, nor of all the confusions that happened till the murder of king Charles the first: only one passage I had from lieutenant general Drumond, afterwards 42 lord Strathallan. He served on the king's side: but he had many friends among those who were for the covenant: so the king's affairs being now ruined, he was recommended to Cromwell, being then in a treaty with the Spanish ambassador, who was negociating for some regiments to be levied and sent over from Scotland to Flanders: he happened to be with Cromwell when the commissioners, sent from Scotland to protest against the putting the king to

e And who but a beast ever believed it? S. (Mr. Brodie, in his History of the British Empire during this Era, whilst he endeavours to establish the truth of almost all the charges brought by the old republicans

of

against king Charles the first, remarks on this passage Burnet, that he cannot distinguish between the king and queen, considering their dark correspondence and joint plots.)

argues with

the Scots

concerning

death, came to argue the matter with him. Cromwell bade Drumond stay and hear their conference, which he did. They began in a heavy languid style to lay indeed great load on the king: but they still insisted on that clause in the covenant, by which they swore they would be faithful in the preservation of his Majesty's person with this they shewed upon what terms Scotland, as well as the two houses, had engaged in the war, and what solemn declarations of their zeal and duty to the king they all along published; which would now appear, to the scandal and reproach of the Christian name, to have been false pretences, if when the king was in their power they should proceed to extremities. Cromwell Upon this, Cromwell entered into a long discourse of the nature of the regal power, according to the the king's principles of Mariana and Buchanan: he thought a breach of trust in a king ought to be punished more than any other crime whatsoever: he said, as to their covenant, they swore to the preservation of the king's person in defence of the true religion: if then it appeared that the settlement of the true religion was obstructed by the king, so that they could not come at it but by putting him out of the way, then their oath could not bind them to the preserving him any longer. He said also, their covenant did bind them to bring all malignants, incendiaries, and enemies to the cause, to condign punishment and was not this to be executed impartially? What were all those on whom public justice had been done, especially those who suffered for joining with Montrose, but small offenders acting by commission from the king, who was therefore the principal, and so the most guilty?

death.