Irish Rebellion

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Irish Rebellion

• 22 October 1641

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Causes

• Tudor Stuart Plantation policy
• Wentworth Lord-Lieutenant (1633-40) ? alienated
  all interest groups (policy of thorough a
  means of 'civilising...this people, or securing
  this kingdom under the dominion of your imperial
  Crown.)
• Replaced by Sir John Borlase Sir William
  Parsons who continued to govern ruthlessly, but
  lacked Wentworths ability to control
• Encouraged by Scottish defiance the success of
  the Covenanters

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• Kings visit to Scotland ? looked on the verge of
  agreeing to a more radical Protestant policy. A
  Presbyterian settlement could only mean further
  religious discrimination and loss of land for the
  old Catholic families.

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Disgruntled by the persecution they encountered
following the Nine Years War (1594- 1603), one
hundred aristocrats and gentry from Ulster
(including the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel)
fled the country in 1607, going into exile on the
continent. The Crown claimed the 4m acres they
left behind (mainly in Ulster).
Above map highlighting Ulster
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By 1620 approximately 40,000 Scottish
Presbyterians had settled in Ulster By 1641,
approximately 100,000 Scottish and English
Protestants had settled in Ulster.
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Catholic land ownership
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Events

• Key castles and strongholds were captured or
  besieged
• Protestant settlers were evicted from their
  lands, farms were burnt, cattle stolen
• Over 4,000 Protestants were murdered (12,000
  killed if include those left to die of exposure
  stripped not only of propery but also clothing),
  often at the instigation of Catholic priests who
  stirred up religious hatred
• In one notorious incident, the Protestant
  inhabitants of Portadown were taken captive and
  then massacred on the bridge in the town.
• Early parliamentarian pamphlets claimed that over
  100,000 settlers had lost their lives
• Many Protestants fled as refugees to England

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• The priests told the people "that Protestants
  were worse than dogs, they were devils and served
  the devil, and the killing of them was a
  meritorious act."

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• The general character of the Rebellion may,
  perhaps, be gathered from the following extract
  from Clogy's Life of Bedell-
• There was no people under Heaven lived in a
  more flourishing state and condition for peace
  and plenty of all things desirable in this life,
  when, on a sudden, we were turned out of house
  and hold, and stripped of all outward enjoyments,
  and left naked and bare in the winter and on the
  Sabbath day put to flight but had no place to
  flee to.

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Impact on English politics

• Reports of wholesale massacres and atrocities
  spread like wildfire through England and
  Scotland, provoking fears of an international
  Popish conspiracy.
• At Westminster, John Pym used the situation to
  political advantage, implicating the King's
  ministers in the "conspiracy" and suggesting that
  the King himself was not to be trusted with
  control of the army that would be required to
  quell the rebellion.
• Parliament voted to raise forces of its own under
  the Militia Bill and passed the Adventurers Act
  in March 1642, which promised land in Ireland to
  speculators who financed the raising of troops.

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• THE ACCOUNT OF ELIZABETH PRIZE OF ARMAGH
• And as for this deponent and many others that
  where stayed behind, diverse tortures were used
  upon them..... and this deponent for her part was
  thrice hanged up to confess to money, and
  afterwards let down, and had the soles of her
  feet fried and burnt at the fire and was often
  scourged and whipt....
• And a great number of other Protestants,
  principally women and children, whom the rebels
  would take, they pricked and stabbed with their
  pitchforks, skeans and swords and would slash,
  mangle and cut them in their heads and breasts,
  faces, arms, and hands and other parts of their
  bodies, but not kill them outright but leave them
  wallowing in their blood to languish and starve
  them to death.

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• 'though Scotland blew the first trumpet, it was
  Ireland that drew the first blood and if they
  had not at that time rebelled, and in that
  manner, it is very probable all the miseries
  which afterwards befell the king and his
  dominions had been prevented'.
• (Earl of Clarenden)