Society County Louth and the Jacobite War

8/14/2019 Society County Louth and the Jacobite War

1/8

County Louth Archaeological and History Society

County Louth and the Jacobite WarAuthor(s): J. G. SimmsReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1959), pp. 141-147Published by: County Louth Archaeological and History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27728969.

Accessed: 08/12/2011 10:13

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

County Louth Archaeological and History Societyis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend

access toJournal of the County Louth Archaeological Society.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=clahshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/27728969?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/27728969?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=clahs


2/8

THE JOURNAL OFTHE COUNTY LOUTH

ARCH^QLQGICAL SOCIETYVol. XIV. 1959 o.3

Count? Hovitfi anb tf)e gacobtte WantBy J. G. Simms

From one aspect the Jacobite war was the concluding phase in a century-longstruggle for the land between Catholic and Protestant. The Cromwellian confiscationhad dispossessed Catholics east of the Shannon; after the restoration of Charles IICatholics had recovered a fraction of their losses, but much less than they had hopedfor. Protestants resented the fact that Catholics had made any recoveries at all.The Restoration Act of Settlement became the centre of controversy. Catholicshoped for its repeal; most Protestants looked on the Act as the guarantee of theirtitle deeds. The Jacobite war brought things to a head. Virtually all Catholics wereon the side of James II and virtually all Protestants on the side of William. Bothsides had come to the conclusion that the complete suppression of their opponentswas essential to their own security. Each regarded the other as rebels, and thepenalties for unsuccessful rebellion included the confiscation of land.Louth had, of course, been one of the counties of the Pale, and most of the landwas owned by colonists of Norman or English stock. Before Cromwell over two-thirdsof the county was owned by the older strata of colonists, who had remained Catholic.At the Restoration Catholics had recovered about a third of their former holding.But it was to a few of the more influential families that most of the restitution wasmade, and most of the smaller owners failed to recover their lands. The Restorationsettlement gave back the broadest acres in the county to Sir John Bellew of Castletown?later Lord Bellew of Duleek; to Lord Carlingford, head of the Taafe family;to Lord Louth of the Plunkett family. The first two had nearly 6,000 plantationacres each, and Lord Louth had over 4,000 plantation acres ; the figures would haveto be nearly doubled to get the equivalent in statute acres. Smaller, but quitesubstantial, estates were recovered by Patrick Bellew of Barmeath, Thomas Clintonof Clintonstown and Nicholas Gernon of Milltown among others. Altogether therewere about twenty Catholic landowners, great and small, shown in the record at theend of the Restoration settlement. In the place of dispossessed landowners newowners had come in, such as Sir William Tichborne, who got Beauly in place of a

141


3/8

142 COUNTY LOUTH ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNALPlunkett and built himself the very fine house we can still admire ;Henry Bellingham,who got Gernonstown, later named Castlebellingham ;Erasmus Smith, who endowedProtestant schools ;Henry Townley, whose family name is commemorated in TownleyHall, among others. The largest Protestant landowner, however, was one whosetitles went back long before Oliver Cromwell to the sixteenth century and the dissolution of the monasteries ;he was Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda.

When James II came to Ireland inMarch, 1689 he was enthusiastically welcomedby Catholics, not so much for his own sake as because he represented the chief hopethey had of recovering and holding their lost lands and political and religiousprivileges. Only in Derry and Enniskillen?the Protestant cities of refuge in thenorth?was James resisted and William acknowledged. The first demand of Catholicswas for a Parliament and a new law to drive a coach and six through the Restoration Act of Settlement. The Parliament met inMay, 1689 and the Louth representatives in the House of Commons were now all Catholics. The county was representedby Thomas Bellew of Dundalk and William Talbot of Haggardstown, who wasLord TyrconneLTs nephew. Hugh Gernon and John Babe sat for Ardee; RobertDermot and John Dowdall for Dundalk; Christopher Fitzlgnatius Peppard andBryan Dermot for Carlingford; and Henry Dowdall and Christopher FitzGeorgePeppard for Drogheda. Lords Bellew and Louth sat in the House of Lords. The Actof Settlement was repealed, and all those who had lost land since 1641 could nowhope to get it back. An Act of Attainder was also passed, which attainted or outlawedsome thousands of Protestants unless they acknowledged allegiance to King Jamesby a certain date. If they failed to do so, their lands would be confiscated andavailable for distribution to Catholics. The list included the Earl of Drogheda,SirWilliam Titchburn, Thomas Bellingham and about sixty others from County Louth,

most of whom were in England preparing to help William to conquer Ireland.But the members of this Patriot Parliament were counting their chickens toosoon. The Acts passed by the Patriot Parliament could be effective only in theevent of a Jacobite victory. Catholic hopes were dashed, first by the successful

resistance of Derry and Enniskillen, and in the following year by the arrival ofWilliam and by his victory at the Boyne. That victory went to the heads ofWilliam'sProtestant supporters and they confidently expected that all the land still in Catholicownership would now be available for distribution.

William at first thought the war was won. When he reached Finglas, just northof Dublin, he issued a declaration calling on the Jacobites to surrender unconditionally ;he made no promises about their lands. There were plenty of deserving supporterswhom William wished to reward with confiscated Irish land, and it was natural forhim to see the advantage of taking away the estates of Jacobites whose support ofJames had forced William himself to take the appalling risk of coming over toIreland at a time when Holland was threatened by Louis XIV's army and his positionin England was threatened by the French navy. William's Protestant followers also


4/8

COUNTY LOUTH AND THE JACOBITE WAR I43saw no advantage inmaking any concession to Irish Catholics who had just repealedthe Act of Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder.But the demand for unconditional surrender was a mistake. It made the IrishCatholics desperate and they determined to hold out for better terms. They found aleader in Patrick Sarsfield. William met with a serious reverse at Limerick, whichhe had to abandon in the late summer of 1690. The war went on formore than a yearlonger and Ginkel, William's Dutch general, was left in charge of operations. Ginkel'sinstructions were to repair the damage done by the demand for unconditionalsurrender; he was to try to bring the Jacobites to terms in time to avoid an Irishcampaign in 1691. Negotiations went on and Catholic intermediaries were used inthe bargaining; the terms offered were some form of toleration for the Catholicreligion and the restoration of, at any rate, most of the lands owned by Catholicswhen the war began. One of the intermediaries was John Bellew, the eldest son ofSir Patrick Bellew of Barmeath. The father was with the Jacobite forces, but theson had remained in Dublin, acknowledged William and put his services at thedisposal of the Williamite government in an effort to get a settlement. To allaysuspicion the Williamite authorities declared him an outlaw when he left for theIrish quarters. This stratagem wTas not successful, as the Jacobite authorities arrestedJohn Bellew and kept him in prison till after the battle of Aughrim.1 After the warhe got a royal pardon from William. The negotiations did not succeed, partly becauseSarsfield took a tough line with the negotiators, and partly because the terms offeredwere too vague and because Catholics were not convinced of the good faith ofWilliam'ssupporters, though they were readier to believe inWilliam himself.Meanwhile the Williamites wTere taking action against the Jacobites and theirproperty in the parts of Ireland under William's control. Estates were taken over byspecial commissioners; law courts were set up, assizes held, and juries returned longlists of Catholic supporters of King James who were to be outlawed. Most of theLouth outlawries seem to have been pronounced in April, 1691, shortly before militaryoperations began again. The list for County Louth contained ninety-nine names andthere were fifty for Drogheda, which was treated as a separate unit.2 The lists werecompiled by Protestant juries in the absence of many of the Jacobites, and there aresome surprising omissions. For instance, they do not include Oliver, who becamethe eighth Lord Louth in 1689 after his father's death, though they do include hisbrother Thomas, who was in France for his education. There is no mention ofSir Patrick Bellew, but his second and third sons, Richard and Christopher, are listed;the eldest son, John, who was doing cloak and dagger work for theWilliamites, is notthere. The list begins with the names of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnell, Stickillin,and John, Lord Bellew of Duleek, Castletown, and his second son, Richard; Walter,his eldest son, who was also with the Jacobite army, is not included. There are a

i. Cal. S.P. dorn., 1693, p. 133.2. Analecta Hibernica, No. 22.


5/8

144 COUNTY LOUTH ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

number of priests mentioned, including Andrew Matthews, Abbot of Mellifont. Thereis an interesting row of Drogheda shopkeepers?John Owens, tailor; Thomas Nugent,baker; Martin Handcock, cooper; Patrick Mahan, bookseller; and James Bellew,skinner. Very few of these outlaws were landowners, but they stood to lose any otherproperty they had, such as houses, stock or leaseholds.When the summer of 1691 set in nothing had come of the negotiations betweenWilliam and the Catholics, and another campaign became inevitable. Athlone fellat the end of June, and on July 12William's general, Ginkel, won a decisive militaryvictory at Aughrim. That was a far more bloodthirsty affair than the Boyne, andthe Irish losses were very heavy. Among those wounded and taken prisoner wereLord Bellew and his eldest son, Walter. Limerick was soon the last hope of theIrish, and a very forlorn hope at that. Their spirits were dejected, there was frictionwith the French commanders and much talk of a negotiated settlement. On23rd September, 1691, treaty talks began, in which Sarsfield was the moving spiriton the Jacobite side. The Irish had not much to bargain with: one city with verylittle area to provide supplies or maintain cavalry. On the other hand, William wasmost unwilling to keep his army for another winter in Ireland ;he wanted to move itto Flanders, where his position was almost desperate. Ginkel was authorized to go agood way to meet the wishes of the Catholics, but he could not go so far as to offerthem a complete indemnity or to promise official recognition for their church. Therewas hard bargaining before the Treaty of Limerick was signed on 3rd October, 1691.One of the hostages exchanged as a guarantee of good faith during the negotiationswas Lord Louth.

Part of the treaty provided that those of the Irish army who wished to accompanySarsfield to France should be allowed to do so, and that King William should supplyships for their transport. That part of the treaty was carried through without muchtrouble, and those who went formed the nucleus of the celebrated Irish brigades inthe service of France. They were allowed to go, but were treated as outlaws so far asany property they had in Ireland was concerned. Foreign treason lists were laterdrawn up, but they had comparatively few names from Louth?twenty in thecounty list and nineteen in the Drogheda list. Not all of these were soldiers; therewere several priests, including Dominick Maguire, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh,whose Irish address was given as Ardee ;many of the Drogheda names were those ofmerchants. The county list included Thomas Plunkett, a brother of Lord Louth, whotransferred from France to Austria and became a captain of cuirassiers in the serviceof the Holy Roman Emperor; he was later allowed to come back to Ireland and spenthis declining years at Louth Hall.1 The list also has several Dermots of Kilcurry anda couple of Taafes of Drumleck.For those who wished to stay in Ireland, pardon and restoration of their estates,if they had any, were offered to those who were still holding out at the end of the war.

i. Louth MSS. NX.I.


6/8

COUNTY LOUTH AND THE JACOBITE WAR 145

Those who had been killed or captured or had surrendered unconditionally at anearlier stage were to have their estates confiscated, and so were those who went toFrance. Most of the Irish at Limerick who had landed estates decided to stay inIreland, take the benefit of the articles of the treaty and get back their estates.

Tribunals were set up to hear their claims, of which over 1,200 altogether were heardand nearly all allowed.

Twenty-one claims from Louth were admitted. These did not correspond totwenty-one separate estates. The names included several from the same family,and others who were leaseholders or merchants. Among landed proprietors wereSir Patrick Bellew of Barmeath, Lord Louth, Capt. Thomas Cashell of Cashellstownand John Babe of Darver, all of whom seem to have recovered their property withoutmuch trouble. Capt. Roger Bellew of Thomastown had more difficulty in getting hisproperty back; he was involved in long legal proceedings with William Barton, whohad got hold of it in the meantime and tried to intimidate Bellew into giving him along lease of it at a low rent. However, the Bellews seem to have persisted, and theystill had rights in the property in 1736 when they conveyed it to Thomas Tenison.1In addition to the pardons that automatically went with a successful claim to thearticles of Limerick, a number of special royal pardons were granted by King Williamat his discretion. The estates of Lord Bellew and Lord Carlingford were saved inthis way. The Bellew case was particularly complicated. After

the first i^ordBellewand his eldest son had been wounded at Aughrim, they were taken to England asprisoners and died there. Richard, the second son, was at Limerick, and so couldeither stay in Ireland and be pardoned or go to France with Sarsfield and be treatedas an outlaw. Actually, he went to France but claimed that he did so for the sake ofhis health, and not to fight, and that General Ginkel had told him that it would beall right. After his father and brother had died he claimed to be heir to the estatewhich had, in the meantime, been given to Lord Sydney, while Richard Bellewhimself was liable to the penalties of being an outlaw. So he got a pass for himselfand his footman to travel to Holland where he met General Ginkel who promised tointercede for him. He also enlisted the powerful help of the Duke of Shrewsbury.But the King was very reluctant to give him a pardon ; it seemed that Lord Sydneywas afraid of his claiming ?3,000 back profits from the estate and he had to promiseto let Sydney keep the money before his pardon went through. To make assurancedoubly sure, he got his father's outlawry reversed by special warrant and ended upby getting his own claim to the articles of Limerick recognized just before the listsclosed. It appears that he succeeded in doing all this while he was still a Catholic.Early in Anne's reign he was to the fore in protesting against the Popery Bill onbehalf of himself and other Catholics.2 His protest failed, and by 1707 he had conformed to the Established Church and had taken his seat in the Irish House of Lords.

i. Louth Arch ological Journal, V, 196.2. Cal. S.P., dorn., 1697, P- 61; B.M. Add. MS. 37, 673, f. 3.


7/8

146 COUNTY LOUTH ARCHAEOLOGICALOURNALNicholas Taafe, the second Earl of Carlingford, was killed at the Boyne ;but hisbrother and heir, Francis, was high in the favour of the Holy Roman Emperor,

William's chief ally. Francis was already a Count of the Holy Roman Empire anda lieutenant-general; soon after he became a field marshal. William gave specialinstructions that no attempt should be made to outlaw the dead brother Nicholas,or to interfere with the Taafe estate.1 Francis died in 1704 and the estate went tohis nephew; when the nephew died in 1738 without children the earldom died out andthe lands were divided, two-thirds to a Protestant relative and one-third to theCatholic Viscount, who sold his share to the Fitzmaurices.

The ten years after thewar were filled with disputes about confiscated lands.Protestants were openly hostile to the Treaty of Limerick, which was not confirmed

by the Irish Parliament till 1697 and then in a truncated form. William and hisEnglish Parliament quarrelled bitterly about the right to dispose of confiscated landsin Ireland. The English Parliament wanted them to be sold to help to pay for thewar and relieve the harassed tax-payer. William wanted to give them out as rewardsto his friends and supporters. At first William seemed to be getting his way, and a

number of royal grants were made. In some parts of Ireland these were on a fantasticscale?100,000 plantation acres to William's lady friend, the Countess of Orkney;about as much to his young Dutch favourite, Keppel; 150,000 to Bentinck, Earl ofPortland, another Dutchman. There were loud complaints about what were calledthe exorbitant grants of the King. In County Louth the royal grants were moremodest. General Ginkel was given Lord Slane's estate, 40,000 acres in all, but mostof it was in Meath, and the Louth portion was relatively small. Lord Sydney, oneof the few Englishmen whom William liked, was first given Lord Bellew's estate,but when that seemed likely to be recovered by the heir he was given some otherestates, including Stickiliin, which had belonged to Lord Tyrconnell. John Baker,whose father had been Governor of Derry during the siege, was given the estate of

Nicholas Gernon?Militown and other lands.In

1699the English Commons forced William to agree to an inquiry into the

way in which the confiscated lands in Ireland had been allotted. In the followingyear they forced him to agree to an Act of Resumption which cancelled all his grantswith a few exceptions, one of which was John Baker's. The rest of the confiscatedland was vested in a body of trustees to be sold towards the expenses of the war.The Act of Resumption was a humiliating demonstration of the power of the EnglishCommons over the Crown. It was also a humiliating treatment of an Irish questionwithout any consultation with the Irish Parliament?Protestant though it was.That offended the pride of Irish Protestants; their pockets were also affected, asSydney and some others had sold out when they saw how the political wind wasblowing, and Irish Protestants had bought their grants at what seemed very cheap

3. Annesley MSS., XX, ioi.


8/8

COUNTY LOUTH AND THE JACOBITE WAR 147

rates. The Act made some provision for the Protestant purchasers, but they werestill to be considerably out of pocket as the result of the resumption proceedings.One of those affected in this way was Sir Richard Levinge, who had bought Tyrconnell's estate of Stickillin, which had been granted to Sydney.1The trustees took three years over their work, from 1700 to 1703. Most of their

time was taken up with hearing claims based on settlements made before the warbegan. Two of the Louth claims were successful :Patrick Gernon was able to save theestate of Killincoole, which would otherwise have been forfeited because of theoutlawry of his father, Hugh; in the same way Nicholas Taafe saved the Stephenstownestate which had been held by his outlawed father, Christopher. But the trusteesrejected the claim of Thomas Clinton, junior, to Clintonstown. When all the inquirieswere complete and allowance had been made for all the exemptions?under the articlesof Limerick special pardons and successful claims?the balance was put up to auctionat Chichester House on College Green, the site of the present Bank of Ireland. Biddingwas limited to Protestants. Only five estates in County Louth were auctioned:

William Talbot's at Haggardstown, bought for Thomas KeigMley, one of the RevenueCommissioners; Lord Slane's, bought by John Graham, William Barton and AnthonyBury; Christopher Cheevers's at Carnantown, bought by John Newton; ThomasClinton's, bought by Sir William Robinson, John Asgill and Thomas Bellingham;and Nicholas D'Arcy's. Bidding at the auction

was not keen. War had just brokenout again with France and there was talk of a Jacobite restoration, when everythingwould be in the melting-pot again. A large number of estates remained unsold at theend of the auction; an omnibus bid for them was offered by an English financecompany with the peculiar name of the Corporation formaking Hollow Sword Blades.The D'Arcy estate of Stonetown was one of the estates knocked down to the Corporation. However, its Irish land speculation was not a success and a few years later itsold out; Stonetown?over 1,000 plantation acres?was sold for ?360 to Richard

Tisdall, a lawyer and politician. The Hollow Sword Blades company then plungedeven more disastrously into South Sea finance and burst in the famous bubble.The Chichester House auction of 1703 concluded the complicated series oftransactions known as the Williamite confiscation. In County Louth it did not

amount to very much?far less than in some other counties. The big estates, thoseof Lords Bellew, Carlingford and Louth, were protected by the articles or by specialpardons. Several other estates were also protected in these ways or by the admissionof legal settlements. The proportion of lands held by Catholics, which had been lessthan a quarter when the Jacobite war began, was still about a fifth when the auctionfinished. But the period of the Penal Laws was to follow, and life was to be very hardfor landowning Catholics. A number of them changed their faith under the pressure.At the end of the penal period only one substantial estate in the county?Barmeath?seems to have been held by a Catholic. The Williamite confiscation of land was onlypart of the price paid by Catholics for their defeat in the Jacobite war ;the shadow ofthat defeat spread over most of the eighteenth century.

i. An abstract of the conveyances is given in Irish Records Commissioners' Reports, 1821-5pp. 348-96.

Documents

Society County Louth and the Jacobite War