The Rebels of Ireland (21 page)

 

If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

 

“Take thy sword, then, Christian pilgrim,” cried Pincher in ringing tones, “and cut off that which doth offend thee.”

“Amen,” intoned the chorus.

The congregation was now in a state of some perturbation. Most were sitting in shocked silence. Others were beginning to murmur, some with approval, others not. The sense amongst the latter—that the business was going too far and that it was time to end—was palpable.

But if they thought he was done, he was not done.

For now, dropping his voice as a prelude to the climax, Pincher leaned towards them almost confidentially. We must not suppose, he reminded them, that the devil was ever passive. He was scheming all the time, not only to save his evil empire from destruction but to regain the upper hand. Even now—Pincher's voice began to rise—the servants of the whore of Rome were plotting to undermine the Protestant cause, to reinstate the Bishop of Rome, who
was the Antichrist, amongst the godly in Ireland. These servants of the whore would try to seduce the king himself, to change the godly laws of the land; and if they were allowed to succeed, it would be Protestants, soon, who were trampled down. Trampled and cut down by the Catholic Irish hordes—Irish hordes who, he pointed out, would be led by the very men whom the congregation now called friends and neighbours. Would his hearers permit such a thing to happen?

“Will you,” he cried, “make yourselves part of that droiling carcass of conformity and comfort, that takes its ease and sleeps while the devil is at his work and the godly are destroyed? Or will you, like soldiers of Christ, arise, put on armour, and buckle thy sword?” For if they did not, he warned, let them be in no doubt as to the consequences. They risked eternal hellfire. God was watching, he cried, his voice rising higher. The Lord was testing them. Would they be seduced, cheated of their birthright and their everlasting souls by the Catholic whore who, even now, would seduce the king to do what he ought not? Or would they take up the cross, and the sword Christ had given them, and strike down the Catholic whore? “Strike!” he shouted. “Strike down the whore!”

“Amen,” came the chorus.

“Strike down the Jezebel, the harlot.”

“Amen. Amen.”

“I come not to send peace,” his voice resounded a final time around the cathedral, “but a sword.”

“Amen. Amen. Amen.”

And furling the black wings of his gown around him, Doctor Simeon Pincher stalked like a raven down from the pulpit.

At the end of the service, he did not join the crowd that gathered in the precincts. Too proud, or too wise for that, he departed privately by another door and strode quickly down Dame Street and out to his lodgings.

Behind him he left a scene of some confusion. The Puritan elements who had provided the chorus were exultant. The sermon, they all agreed, easily surpassed the Bishop of Derry's diatribe in the spring. And Pincher was a local man. Now that they had such a spokesman, they said, it would go hard with the Papists.

The Catholics, naturally, were horrified. Two questions in particular were asked. Did Pincher speak only for himself and his friends—or were there others, more powerful, behind him? And was this a signal that the king, instead of helping the Catholics, had changed his mind and was about to turn on them?

But a large party, some Catholic, some Church of Ireland men, had a different view. They did not share Pincher's contempt for compromise, and were disturbed at this attempt to worsen a political situation that was already tense. Walter Smith, in particular, was deeply distressed, and was quite surprised therefore, on meeting Doyle outside, to find that the Church of Ireland merchant, who certainly believed in compromise, was taking things so calmly.

“What is to be done?” Smith asked anxiously.

“Done?” Doyle looked at him quizzically. “There is nothing to be done. Pincher has just destroyed himself.”

“How so? There are many in Dublin Castle, and in London, who would agree with every word he says.”

“No doubt. But he's destroyed all the same.” Doyle smiled grimly. “You did not listen carefully enough,” he continued quietly. “His sermon was fearful, certainly. But he also made one fatal mistake.”

In the chilly month of January in the year 1628, a delegation sailed from Dublin on a journey to London. It consisted of eight members of the Old English community and three Protestant settlers. Orlando Walsh was not a member of the delegation, although his name had been considered; but his cousin Doyle was.

The purpose of the delegation was to negotiate an agreement
with the English Privy Council. During the summer and autumn, the proposals which Orlando had discussed with his family in the spring had been further worked upon by many hands and finally refined into twenty-six “Matters of Grace and Bounty to Ireland” to be presented to the king; and it was these “Graces,” as they were called, which the delegation carried with them.

The situation they left behind them in Dublin had not changed greatly from the way things were after Pincher's sermon. The doctor strode about Dublin now like a man who has been marked by destiny. To many of the Protestant faction, he was a hero; to most Catholics, he had become a figure of hate. For men like Walsh and Doyle, he was contemptible: a man of learning who had turned into a rabble-rouser; the poorer Catholic folk watched him pass with murder in their eyes. All this the doctor relished. He had never experienced fame before.

But most gratifying to Pincher was the sense that his life was now justified. It is a fine thing for a man to know that he is right; but it was finer still to know that he had stood up for what was right, and that all Dublin, all Ireland, knew it. Even his sister knew it, for he had written her a full account of the business the very day after the sermon. And if she had not yet sent word of her approval, he was in imminent expectation of a letter from that quarter.

Meanwhile, no further action had been taken by the authorities at Dublin Castle. Everyone awaited the outcome of the negotiations in London.

A new English Parliament had been called, and the king and his advisors were fully occupied trying to wrestle grants of taxes from its unwilling members. Doyle was able to learn much about the character of the English. It was easy enough to encounter some of the gentlemen who had gathered from all over the country for the Parliament. Some of these were solid country landowners and professional men like his cousin Walsh. They were Protestants, though few of them struck him as deeply religious. But they all seemed to have a great fear of the Catholic powers, who they believed would like to
bring the Inquisition to England. Nearly all of them also quite honestly believed that the native Irish were little better than wild animals. Doyle thought their fears of Catholics unnecessary and their views of the Irish laughable. Their political concerns were another matter. They were furious that the king's irresponsible favourite, Buckingham, was plunging the country into senseless wars; and feared that King Charles, with his open contempt for Parliament and his illegal methods of raising money, was deliberately trying to undermine their English Liberties. On these matters, the Dublin merchant decided, he'd have felt the same as they did.

But among some of the other Parliament men, and still more in the city tradesmen, Doyle encountered a tone that was far more strident. Puritans and Presbyterians, these men dressed soberly and looked at the world with stern disapproval. They reminded him of Doctor Pincher, only more so. Once, when he chanced to say that he had been across the river to see a play, a Puritan merchant asked him in all seriousness if he did not fear for his immortal soul. “The theatres are for the idle and the corrupt,” the London man explained. “They should all be closed.” Doyle explained that the play had been instructive in its way. “It was by Shakespeare. Would you close his plays down, even?” he had asked. “His especially,” the man replied. With these men, Doyle could find no common ground at all.

“They hate the king not so much for his tyranny,” a friend at the Exchange explained, “but because he is not a Puritan. And their party is growing.” Then his friend had smiled. “If your mission here succeeds, King Charles will have better friends in Ireland than he has in England.” It was a remark Doyle was to remember.

As the weeks passed, and King Charles and his Parliament remained at loggerheads, it seemed to Doyle that the Privy Councillors became more interested in coming to terms with the Irish delegation. They would meet, usually, in a chamber in the old palace of Westminster, or in the nearby royal palace of Whitehall. Often, the Irish party would dine together in a tavern afterwards. As
a member of the Protestant Church of Ireland, but one who always took a sympathetic and moderate line on Catholic matters, he found that his voice was listened to with increasing respect; and one day late in March, just as he was leaving the chamber where the discussions had been taking place, one of the English councillors, an elderly gentleman with a white beard, drew him to one side for a private talk. That evening, gathering the Catholic members of the delegation together at his lodgings, Doyle summarised his meeting as follows.

“The king would like to do as much for you as he can. But he faces two difficulties. One is the general strength of the Puritan party in his realm. The other is that any subsidy from Ireland will have to be raised from all the parties there, including the Protestants in the plantations. He cannot give the Catholics all they want, but he will do as much as he can to help.”

“How much?” asked the youngest of the delegates.

“He cannot and will not give Ireland her own militia. The Parliament men here in England would see that as a threat—a Catholic army to be used against them. That's how they'd see it. And I can vouch from my own observations that this is true. However,” he went on, “the king is prepared to let us Catholics bear arms. He is, if you like, acknowledging your loyalty, and that is important.”

“What about the recusancy fines and the Oath of Supremacy?” asked another Catholic gentleman.

“The Oath remains for those seeking office. The Protestants won't stand for anything less. As for the fines, he dare not publicly remove them—at least not at present. But he will give you a private assurance that they will not be collected. And further, he will see to it that Catholic priests, so long as they remain discreet, will not be troubled. In other words, he will maintain the status quo, and will not yield to the demands of Pincher and his like.”

“We'd hoped for an advance from that position.”

“One is offered. The question of inheritance and the threat of making heirs take the Oath of Allegiance. So long as your family
had held their land for sixty years, there will be no question of applying any awkward tests.” This would help a great many Old English families; even Irishmen like O'Byrne of Rathconan, Doyle had noted with satisfaction, would now be secure, once and for all, under such a ruling.

“It's a move in the right direction, at least,” the gentleman who'd asked the question agreed.

“There is one thing, however,” Doyle continued, “and that is the question of money.” He paused. “They will not ask for it. But they are hoping we might offer.”

“And how much are they hoping we might offer?”

“Forty thousand pounds.”

“Forty?” There was a collective gasp.

“For each of three years, paid quarterly. From the whole of Ireland, of course, Protestant settlers and all.”

“That is a very large amount,” the Catholic gentleman remarked.

“The king,” said Doyle drily, “is very short of money.”

He himself wrote the very next morning to both Walter Smith and his cousin Walsh to seek their advice on raising such an amount. Three weeks passed before he heard back from them that they thought it could be done.