Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 3 (of 3), 1660-1690Bagwell, Richard
History
Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 3 (of 3), 1660-1690
Bagwell, Richard
Ireland -- History -- 17th century
Ormonde charged his son to treat the new Viceroy with proper respect,
to silence the murmurs of his friends, and to take, if possible,
more trouble than ever; 'and if you can get the Tories suppressed,
that His Majesty's kingdom may be delivered up in as much peace and
order, as I found it in war and confusion when I was first Lord
Lieutenant.' Robartes lingered long in England after his nomination,
and his instructions were not settled for more than five months. The
King thought of reserving military appointments to himself--probably
Buckingham wished to have the jobbing in his own hands--but Ormonde
successfully objected on the ground that this would be unfair to
Robartes and derogatory to the great office which he himself had held
twice and might hold again. The instructions about revenue matters, in
which Ormonde's enemies hoped to find some means of attacking him, were
also modified at his suggestion.[81]
[Sidenote: The Tories.]
[Sidenote: Costigan.]
[Sidenote: Costello.]
[Sidenote: Nangle.]
Ossory was not destined to have the happiness of putting down the
Tories. There had always been many in Ireland who were willing to
fight, but not to work, and Chichester had much trouble with them. When
the Civil War came to an end Cromwell encouraged their emigration,
and at the Restoration the dispossessed Irish, many of whom had
followed the King's fortunes abroad, expected to be restored also.
Crowds of priests and friars came to Ireland, and their meetings
caused alarmist reports about an intended rising. Orrery generally
put the worst construction upon such facts as came to his knowledge,
and there were certainly some outrages, but Ormonde thought the
Cromwellian soldiers and sectaries much the most dangerous, and the
Castle plot showed that he was right. Later on, as it became evident
that Adventurers and soldiers would keep a good deal of what they had
got, the disappointed Irish gathered here and there in bands, and
leaders were not wanting. John Costigan, with several followers, long
haunted the woods and bogs on both sides of Slieve Bloom, but seems to
have been taken at last through an informer, who thus purchased his
own pardon. Many others were taken or slain by like means, but in the
case of Dudley Costello, Lord Kingston, the President of Connaught,
found it 'more difficult than he believed to make one Irishman betray
another.' Costello was the heir to estates in Mayo from which he was
driven during the Civil War. He distinguished himself in Flanders as
a captain in the Duke of York's Irish regiment, and was named in the
Act of Settlement as one of the 232 'Ensignmen' who were restorable,
but not until reprisal had been made to the Adventurers and soldiers
in possession. There was not land enough to satisfy both interests,
and Costello's hopes were destroyed by the Act of Explanation. In
the summer of 1666 he was joined by Cornet Edward Nangle, another
Connaught malcontent, and the two entered Ulster with a considerable
party.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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