BOOKS.
THE PAPAL EMBASSY OF MONSIGNOR RINUCCINI TO THE IRLSEI CONFEDERATES.* Ix the year 1747 appeared a volume by one of the best historical critics of that day, Dr. Thomas Birch, entitled, "An Inquiry into the Share which King Charles I. had in the Transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan." This work was to a great degree based on "a manuscript in the valuable library of the Right Honourable Thomas, Earl of Leicester, transcribed from the original in the possession of the family of Rinuccini, at Florence. This manu- script contains memoirs of John Battista Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, the Pope's N uncio in Ireland in 1615 and the following years, and," continues Birch, "is entitled, 'De Theresis Anglicanm intrusione et progressu, et de Bello Cattolico ad annum 1641 in Hibernici cmpto, exindeque per aliquot annos gesto, Commentaries.' It was written after the Nuncio's death by an Irish priest, who was employed by Thomas Battista Rinuccini, Great Chamberlain to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to digest his brother's papers, and reduce them into the form of a narrative." The correspondence which formed the materials for this Commentary was transcribed near the close of the year 1670, from the original documents, under the supervision of the brother of Monsignor Rinuccini, in order to be published with the Commentary, but the intention was not then fulfilled. According to the title-page of the present work, however, Signor Aiazza, librarian, published it from the original MSS.,—in what year, strange to say, the present translator and editor entirely omit to state ; and Miss Hutton commenced the translation of his edition "many years since," and "carried it on during a long illness," leaving, however, at her death a large portion unrevised, and the work incomplete by some pages. "To supply this deficiency and revise the rest has been the duty of the editor." The Rinuccini Library, we understand (though the pre- sent volume does not mention the fact), was broken up some seventeen or eighteen years ago, and a small portion of it, includ- ing the diplomatic correspondence of the Marquis Rinuccini at the commencement of the eighteenth century, was secured for the Library of the British Museum ; but as far as our information goes, this much more valuable correspondence of the Nuncio Rinuccini has been lost, at present at any rate, to the British nation, who are its natural possessors. Perhaps when Mr. Glad- stone or Mr. Disraeli establishes a really National University in -Ireland, it will be secured for the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
The graceful and spirited style of the present translation makes us regret that the translator did not live to superintend its publi- cation. Some errors, so palpable, it is true, as not to be of serious importance (whether they proceed from oversight on the part of the Italian editor or his translator), would then probably have been corrected, and we should have felt greater security for the accuracy and fidelity of the whole translation, than can be the case now. The supplementary editor does not even inform us whether the original documents were in Italian or in Latin. One or two undated despatches seem to be placed in wrong order of time, but we have, nevertheless, no reason to doubt that the English reader has here, for the first time, in a substantially correct form, the 'reports of the Nuncio to the Court from which he was accredited, during a period of unexampled interest and importance.
As will have been gathered from what we have already said, a large part of the subject-matter of this volume has been already anticipated by the abstract used by Birch and subsequent his- torians, but there are a good many incidental remarks on the social and ecclesiastical condition of Ireland at that period scat- tered through the correspondence and the subjoined General Report to the Pope, drawn up after the close of the Embassy, which are fresh as well as curious. And even where we are already in possession of the facts from the Commentary, there is a great difference, and an immense advantage in point of both vivid- ness and historical value, in gathering them from the despatches themselves, as they were written during the actual progress of events. Until the last few months of the Embassy, these despatches supply a nearly complete and continuous contemporary history, in the strictest sense of the word, and it only requires a comparison of the correspondence itself with the subsequent General Report of the Nuncio, to see how much truer an insight the former affords into the character of the Nuncio, and the feelings by which he
• The Embassy in fre,land of Monsignor G. B. Rinaccini, Archbishop of Fermo, in the Years 1645-1649. Published from the Original PSSS. in the Rinueeini Library by G. Aiazza, Librarian. Translated for the first time into English by Annio Hutton. Dublin: Alexander Thom. 1578.
was actually animated in his conduct at various crises. We know indeed of no more distinct self-portraiture than that which Mon- signor Rinuccini supplies in these papers, and this alone would make them interesting as a study of character.
The general result of a perusal of this volume is to confirm, to our minds at least, the estimate which historians have formed of the Nuncio himself, though to modify somewhat the received idea of the aim of his policy. He was certainly not, as has been supposed, of Spanish proclivities, nor did he lend any support to the project of placing Ireland under the Protectorate of the " Most Catholic King." His own favourite idea was evidently that of a Protectorate of the Holy See alone, but should this be impracticable, he preferred the Protectorship of the "Most Christian King," i.e., of Cardinal Mazarin. That he got the credit of being a Spanish partisan was owing probably to the antecedents of his great military supporter, Owen Roe O'Neill, and to the jealous representations of Queen Henrietta Maria in order to enlist the Court of France against the Separatist party in Ireland, of which the Nuncio was the well-known head. In truth, he had little liking for any secular authority, and to the authority of the heretic King Charles he scarcely concealed his antagonism ; while to that of the heretic Viceroy, Ormonde, he did not conceal it at all, making it the pivot of his whole diplomatic policy. For the general bent of this policy Rinuccini had some warrant in a pass- age in his instructions :—" Your Excellency has been called by his Holiness to a great and glorious office—to restore and re-establish the public exercise of the Catholic Religion in the island of Ireland ; and further, to lead her people, if not as tributaries to the Holy See, such as they were five centuries ago, to subject themselves to the mild yoke of the Pontiff, at least in all spiritual affairs." Contenting itself with this hint, the Court of the Vatican drew up carefully the rest of the instructions in the spirit to which the Papacy owes its greatest triumphs, of making the best of immediate possibilities, and trusting to the sagacity and discretion of its envoy how far its objects and pretensions were to be pushed, or openly displayed, according to circumstances. But the Court of Rome had not certainly in this case shown its usual sagacity in the choice of an instrument in this very difficult piece of business. The character which historians have already assigned to Rinuccini is fully borne out by these despatches. He was of a very active— not to say restless spirit—indefatigable in his exertions in good or ill-health, making little complaint of personal illnesses, and devoted in the most uncompromising manner to the aggrandisement of the Papacy. But he approached every sub- ject from the point of view of a mere Ecclesiastic, he was destitute of the instincts and genius of a Statesman, and while really animated by a paramount devotion to a cause, managed to give the impression to those with whom he came in contact of a personal and selfish policy, in which everything was *subordinated to his own exaltation over the liberties of the realm. He mistook a high-handed and overbearing assertion of his policy for vigour and consistency, and if he sometimes overawed opposi- tion under a favourable conjunction of circumstances, he was quite unequal to the more important task of stemming the current of adverse events, and conciliating and disarming opposition. On the contrary, during his four years' embassy, he contrived to alienate from what we may call the Ultramontane party almost every man of eminence or influence. His own nominees to the bishoprics turned against him, and the public declarations- into which once or twice he coerced the leading Irish ecclesiastics were regularly followed by recantations or evasions on their part which showed the imperfect and unsubstantial nature of the Nuncio's victories. No doubt he had to contend with great difficulties and endless complications of party and private irterests ; but this very variety and complication would have opened up a very promising field of labour to a man of real diplomatic ability. The Old Irish or Native party—Roman Catholic and Anti-English —which the Nuncio considered the natural party of the Papacy, but which was by far the weakest in social position and influence, and, if the most faithful depository of what the Church held to be Religious Truth, was also the seat of disorganised barbarism, was not paramount in any province but Ulster, and even there rested mainly on the military abilities of one man—O'Neill—while it was discredited by the atrocities practised in the commencement of the Rebellion for which it was mainly responsible. Of this party the Court of Rome could always have been Secure, from the necessities of its position, and the real danger lay in the Papal party being too closely identified with it, and reduced to its proportions. Yet this was the effect of the course pursued by the Nuncio, when, from the very commencement, he treated as concealed enemies all the leaders and men of influence in
the great Anglo-Irish, but Roman Catholic party, of which. he found, on his arrival, the Confederation of Kilkenny the repre- sentative. These men—who had become to a considerable extent bound up by the course of time and events with the past policy and the pretensions of England, and feared a too complete Ecclesiastical Restoration as the prelude to a restoration of Church lands, as. well as a curtailment of National Religious Liberties by the intro- duction of Ultramontane authority and Roman usages—required. the most delicate handling and the most judicious humouring, in. order to disarm their jealousies and quiet their fears. Nothing would be so likely to confirm them in their distrust of Roman_ intervention—which they had not invited and never desired in the concrete form of a Nuncio—than an uncompromising an- tagonism to all free and personal action on their part with reference to England and the Royalist party- If some con- sideration had been shown for their wish, however mistaken the Nuncio might have thought it, for a negotiation with Charles and Ormonde, they would have soon found it necessary to fall back on the Irish and Papal party as a makeweight in their control over the mixed Government of the Protestant Viceroy, and would have been all the more disposed to defer to the autho- rity of Rome, because it had remained associated with their liberties. As it was, the crooked and perfidious policy of Charles in the negotiations through the Earl of Glamorgan gave the Nuncio an opportunity of overthrowing for the time this concilia- tory Royalist movement, and of grasping for a time the authority of the Confederation in his own hands, and those of the "Clerical party," as they called themselves ; but it was at the expense of increasing ten-fold the hostility among the mass of Irish Catholics- to the policy and pretensions of Rome, and no sooner did ill- fortune in the field throw discredit on the Clerical Executive, than the unsubstantial character of its position became evident. The Ormonde party revived in increased and overwhelming strength, Rinuccini's adherents lost their ascendancy in the Council, and' dwindled to little more than a clerical coterie dependent on the strength and fortunes of O'NeilPs Ulster army. The Nuncio him- self does not seem to have sustained his dignity very well in these later days of depression. After his previous conduct, he cam hardly be suspected of cowardice, or desire to avoid personal in- conveniences, but the overweening idea of what was due to him in his representative character of Nuncio seems to have produced very much the same kind of unbecoming results. He certainly fell below the position, and by his retreat and inactivity gave the coup de grace to the prospects of his party.
Nothing is more striking in this volume than the light thrown on the feelings and attitude of not only the Roman Catholic laity in Ireland at this period, but a large part of the clergy also. They had all been carried away by the tide of religious enthusiasm excited by the first successes of the insurgents, and did not pro- perly realise their own feelings and wishes until their party had assumed to a great extent the character of a national government. Then they began to doubt how far the prospect of a Roman Catholic restoration in the full sense of the term was what they really wanted. The Nuncio describes in mournful and reproachful terms the spirit which they manifested in the face of his attempts to bring back the Romish ideal. When the question of the nomination of the Bishops by the Holy See was mooted in a congregation of the clergy, "I was obliged," he says, "to put forth all my strength, as I never had met with such opposition before. Many things were alleged, either utterly false, or founded on false assumptions of which we have no certain knowledge. For example, that the King had the privilege of nominating the Bishops, and that the bishoprics are in. the patronage of the Crown ; that his Majesty had this privilege, not only in England, but also in Ireland, and that he always exercised it before heresy crept into the kingdom. And when rt. in order to avoid a long disquisition on the truth of these facts, re- plied that whether the privilege had been granted or not, certain. it was that on account of the King's heresy it had returned to the giver, i.e., the Holy See, and that it was ridiculous to say that the- Confederates had sworn to preserve intact a prerogative which the- King no longer possessed, they replied that their doctrines were- different from those of Rome." The regular clergy he found un- willing to conform again to monastic rule, and from their long connection with the laity in the capacity of chaplains in noblemen's houses strongly imbued with lay feelings, and with the older bishops quite willing to be contented with the exercise of their religious rites in private houses, as under recent Protestant rule, rather than incur the odium and prolonged oppo- sition which would be excited by the public and splendid dis- play of religious pomp on which the Nuncio insisted as essential to. the position of Roman Catholicism in Ireland. The Jesuits appear to have preferred the more moderate course, which would have rendered it possible to unite Roman Catholics and Royalist Protes- tants in one combination, and the Nuncio had to listen to language which filled him with horror, as little less than downright heresy. 6 6 I have done no other good," he writes, on arriving on the Con- tinent after his departure from Ireland, "hut delayed, in some degree, for three years the miserable peace, and increased the desire for Divine worship ; but if your Eminence will allow me to speak openly, I believe I have done much to unveil the real inclina- tions of the English party who rule here, so that for the future people may not be so ready to celebrate their purity and their sincerity towards his Holiness and the Church of Rome. In truth, they have neither reverence nor affection for the Church of Rome, and hold almost the same opinions as Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth." In the bitterness of his heart he had previously written :—" In the public Assembly, Viscount Muskerry said that the day of my arrival was a fatal one for the country ; in short, they have shown in every action that they cannot endure the authority of the Pope ; they are even not ashamed to say, in private and in print, that his succours were mere empty hopes, vanity and vexation. It may be, therefore, by the will of God, that a people, Catholic only in name, and so irreverent towards the Church, should feel the thunderbolt of the Holy See, and draw down upon themselves the anger which is the meed of the scorner."
Iudeed, the Nuncio's opinion of the Irish nation is never a very high one, even before he found his authority set at naught. The distinction he draws in his Report after his return from Ireland between the Old Irish, and the Anglo-Irish, or modern Irish, as he styles them, is curious. "Nature even seems to widen the breach by difference of character and qualities, the new party being for the most part of low stature, quick-witted, and of subtle understanding ; while the old are tall, simple-minded, un- refined in their manner of living, generally slow of comprehension, and quite unskilled in negotiations." So it would appear from this that Irish wit is after all due to an Anglo-Norman infusion ! He gives a sorry account of the misdoings of the Ulster or Old Irish soldiers, the true men of the faith, during their residence in the other Provinces, which strongly confirms our belief in the reality of the atrocities attributed to them in the beginning of the Rebellion ; indeed, the official Catholic account of a battle in the North of Ire- land in which this Old Irish army were the victors may be read with advantage at the present day, when it is the fashion to lay such great stress on the Cromwellian slaughters at Drogheda and Wex- ford, in contrast to Catholic tenderness, and to represent Sir Phelim O'Neill as a model of humanity and chivalry. "The Catholic horse broke the opposing squadron, and having come to pikes and swords, the Puritans began to give way, disordered and con- founded, so that at last they were dispersed, or remained dead on the field ; even every common soldier on our side being satiated with blood and plunder. Those killed on the field have been counted to the number of 3,243. It is impossible to know how many were killed in flight, but as the slaughter continued for two days after the battle, it is certain that of the infantry not one escaped ; of the cavalry but few remain . . . . twenty-one officers only are prisoners, all the rest were killed. Of our troops seventy only were killed The whole Army recognises this victory as from God, every voice declares that not they, but the Apostolic money and provisions, have brought forth such great fruits. Every one slaughtered his adversary, and Sir Phelim O'Neill, who bore himself most bravely, when asked by the colonels for a list of his prisoners, swore that his regiment had not one, as he had ordered
his men to kill them all without distinction On review- ing the whole affair from the beginning to the end, one can see nothing to find fault with in its management, either in judgment or foresight ; and even envy can impute no failure or imprudence either to officers or men." Never was a more emphatic "Apes-
telic " benediction bestowed on indiscriminate and cold-blooded slaughter. The character of the other and greater O'Neill— Owen Roe—is brought out well in these pages, as a man and as a General, and notwithstanding his haughty self-will and personal ambition, with a certain waywardness and occasional irresolution in his generalship, he is clearly the one able man whcm the Rebel- lion produced among Irish soldiers, as Viscount Muskerry and the Plunkets among Irish civilians. Ormonde's character, de- picted here by a most unfriendly pen, gains greatly in respect of sagacity and clear-sighted devotion to certain fixed principles ; while the additional touches only darken still more the reputation of King Charles. Such are only a few of the interesting facts and impressions to be gathered from a perusal of this volume. What we have given will, we have no doubt, send many of our readers to the work itself for other and fuller details, and we can promise them that their pains will not be ill bestowed.
Previous page
