The Rebels of Ireland

  “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.

  It was early in May that the old councillor took him to one side again and asked him to come to a private meeting with some friends of his the following day. Naturally, Doyle agreed, and the following morning met the old man by the little monument of Charing Cross, which stood a short way north of Whitehall. Walking southwards with the old man towards Westminster, Doyle was surprised when his companion suddenly turned in at a door of Whitehall Palace. “This way,” he said, leading Doyle down a passage. At the end of the passage was an impressive entrance, guarded by two soldiers who, on seeing their approach, immediately opened the doors.

  And a moment later, the Dublin merchant found himself in the presence of the king.

  King Charles of England could not be mistaken. Doyle had seen his picture often enough, with his long hair, his neatly pointed beard, and his Stuart eyes, brown, very fine, and somewhat sad. But one thing Doyle had not quite realised.

  The man was tiny. Beautifully dressed in doublet and lace collar, but tiny. He remembered a painter he had once encountered in a tavern telling him: “They wanted me to paint a picture of the king that would look heroic. I told them the only way to do that was to put him on a horse.” Even wearing the built-up heels that were now the fashion at court, the king only came up to the Dublin man’s chest. But if Doyle had been surprised by his stature, he was equally struck by the royal hands. They were quite extraordinary: very fine, and with the longest, tapering fingers that the merchant had ever seen. Who would have imagined, he thought, that this elegant, spidery little fellow had not long ago informed his Parliament, in no uncertain terms, that their only purpose was to do what he told them, and that if they argued with him, he’d send them all home? Yet he was about to discover one other feature of the king’s strange personality: in private, King Charles was always very polite.

  Having presented Doyle to the monarch and let him make his bow, the elderly gentleman had drawn back, leaving Doyle standing alone with the king. King Charles, with a faint smile, courteously thanked the Dublin man for his patience and help as a member of the delegation during the long negotiations.

  “I have heard many reports of your conduct, Master Doyle,” he said quietly, “and I know you to be well-affected to us, and a man of wise judgement.”

  “I thank Your Majesty.” Doyle bowed again.

  “You believe, Master Doyle, that an accommodation can be reached with the Catholics of Ireland?”

  “I do,” Doyle answered honestly. “I have many Catholic kinsmen, Your Majesty, to whom I am bound by close ties, who are well-affected to you and whose families have been faithful to the British crown four centuries and more. Such people, and many like them, are Your Majesty’s loyal friends.”

  “I know it,” the king said with a thoughtful nod, “and in time to come, be assured, I shall count upon that friendship. I should have liked to do more for them now, but there are gentlemen in England of a Puritan persuasion who are not so well-affected and who place difficulties in the path.” The king now glanced across to where Doyle’s elderly companion was discreetly waiting. It was a signal that the interview was about to end.

  But before he parted from the monarch, Doyle realised that he had one more thing to do. He had been looking for a chance ever since the previous summer. Once or twice in Dublin he had raised the issue, but never with much success. Now, he saw, he had just been granted the best opportunity he could have dreamed of.

  “The loyalty of many in Dublin—and the raising of a grant of money,” he shrewdly added, “is made more difficult by certain of the Puritans there, who cannot, I think, be any friends of Your Majesty.”

  The royal eyes returned to him quickly.

  “How so?”

  “I speak of those who openly preach against Your Majesty’s government and even against those closest to you. For they stir up discord amongst the people,” he explained gravely, “which those of wiser counsel amongst us are unable to allay.”

  “Pray tell me more.”

  It did not take the merchant long to give an account of Pincher’s sermon. The attitude it represented not only made an accommodation with the Old English impossible, he
pointed out, but in its virulent Puritanism, it was a long way from the moderate Church of Ireland to which he had supposed he belonged. Was this truly what the king wished? he respectfully asked.

  The king had listened gravely to all this.

  “It is not our wish, Master Doyle,” he replied, “and this shall be made plain. But I fear there are many in Dublin who hold such opinions.”

  “Some, Your Majesty. But there are many more who may follow where Doctor Pincher leads.” Doyle paused, while the king nodded thoughtfully. He was ready, now, for his masterstroke. For a moment, he pretended to hesitate. Then he struck. “It is not only the attack upon Your Majesty’s Church and government that I find seditious, but the words touching the person of the queen.”

  The king’s eyebrows raised.

  “The queen?”

  Doyle looked embarrassed. The fact was, he explained, that Pincher had repeatedly referred to the Catholic influence in the most insulting terms: the Catholic whore, the harlot, the Jezebel. And he had said that this whore should be struck down.

  “Perhaps he did not intend it so, Your Majesty, but I took it he was referring to the queen.” There was an awful silence. “It may be,” said Doyle, with an insincerity that did not need to be disguised, “that I mistook his meaning. But so it was widely understood.”

  Had Pincher intended the queen herself by his phrase? Not directly. Doyle didn’t think so for a moment. By implication or inclusion? Perhaps. He might not have called the queen a harlot, but he certainly loathed her Catholicism, felt outrage at her marriage to the king, and saw her as an agent of evil. Was he urging his audience to murder her? Of course not. But that construction could be placed upon his words. And when the royal councillors made enquiries about the sermon, and the phrases had all been confirmed, Doyle had no doubt what King Charles would think.

  That night, he wrote with some contentment to his cousin Orlando Walsh: “Doctor Pincher, I think, is now destroyed.”

  The holy well

  1637

  FATHER LAWRENCE WALSH loved to be with his brother and sister. He also loved the autumn season, and the golden leaves were falling by the path as the family rode across to Malahide Castle that Sunday morning.

  Orlando was accompanied by his wife Mary. Anne and Walter Smith had brought their son Maurice.

  When they arrived at the Talbots’ little castle, they found a knot of people gathered outside. Some were household servants, some folk from the village of Malahide, others from farther away; two local gentry families had come over from their estates. Several members of the Talbot family were there to greet them, and when they saw Lawrence, they asked if he wished to assist the priest, who was already inside. But Lawrence indicated that he would be happy to sit with his family unless the priest had need of him. Soon after this, they all went inside.

  From the small hallway by the entrance, the little congregation made its way quietly up the big staircase, and from there into the chamber known as the Oak Room, in which they could all just be accommodated, and which served every Sunday as a chapel for the local community. Father Luke, the elderly priest, a little thinner and more bent than when Lawrence had seen him last, was waiting for them and greeted the Jesuit with a smile. A scent of incense pervaded the room. Though there was light from the window, the candles on the side tables made a pleasing glow on the dark wood panelling. But the room’s finest feature, in front of which the little altar had been set up, was the big oak panel over the fire, upon which a magnificent depiction of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin had been carved in low relief. Lawrence looked at it with affection. It had been there as long as he could remember, and he had been coming to the Sunday Mass at Malahide Castle since he was a boy. As soon as they were all gathered in, and had sunk to their knees for a few moments of silent prayer, the old priest began to say the Mass.

  What was it, Lawrence wondered, that made these occasions so special? He had so many commitments in the city, and there was no doubt that they were all worthwhile. His faith had never been stronger. But there was something about these gatherings in country houses, an intimacy and warmth in which, he was sure, the pure flame of the faith burned especially bright. The nature of the Mass itself was intimate and intense, of course. And to be welcomed by a family like the Talbots into their home: that also made a difference. But the fact that, like the congregations of the Early Church, they were compelled to meet like this in secret—perhaps, he reflected, this very persecution was a kind of blessing. For here, in the Oak Room at Malahide, he always felt that he was, truly, in a direct communion with those early days of the universal Church.

  As he looked at Orlando and his wife, both deep in prayer, and at Anne, her eyes a little dark and haggard nowadays, with her solid, grey-haired husband Walter, he thanked God for their quiet, determined piety. Even young Maurice, an eighteen-year-old youth now—though he did not seem to have experienced the sense of religious urgency that had marked his own life and Orlando’s at the same age—even young Maurice surely felt gratitude for the embracing religious atmosphere in which he had been brought up.

  The Mass proceeded. Agnus dei . . . Ora pro nobis . . . The kindly Latin of the liturgy flowed seamlessly on, the Latin words that had brought comfort to men all over Western Christendom, and given structure to their lives, for a millennium and more . . . The host was elevated, the miracle of the Mass was achieved. Yes, Lawrence thought, the Church of Rome was the universal church, its pillars were moral precepts, its arches gave shelter to every Christian family. Once within, there was no valid reason to leave. It was with a profound sense of peace that he rose from his knees at the end of the service.

  The congregation did not leave the Oak Room immediately. Father Luke came round to say a few words to each of them. The old priest was delighted to see Anne, who had not been there for some time, and to learn that the last of her daughters had also married that summer. “That leaves only this young man,” he said with a twinkle in his eye to Maurice, “who has no need to think of such things yet.” Orlando and Mary he greeted warmly. It was clear that he had a special feeling for the devout couple.

  The couple were still childless. Though Lawrence knew better than to question divine providence, it nonetheless puzzled as well as grieved him that his brother and his wife had never been blessed with a child. At first, he had not been too concerned. He remembered when Anne had raised the issue ten years ago, that afternoon when they had all walked out to the sea at Portmarnock: even then, he had believed that with a little patience, all would be well. But the years had passed, and no child had come. Why, he wondered, should God have witheld His normal blessing in this way? It could not, surely, be that the couple were being punished for some transgression. Both were deeply devout, and devoted to each other. Indeed, their failure to have children, he guessed, had probably caused their religion to be even more intense. Lawrence sincerely loved his sister-in-law. She had one of those faces that, to the superficial eye, do not improve with the years. As a pretty, brown-haired girl, she’d had a button nose and soft cheeks. Those cheeks had become a little coarser and redder now, and her nose seemed somewhat shapeless, like a smudge. Her brown eyes looked out at the world seriously, with a slight bulge. But to the keener, religious gaze, her goodness made her more beautiful than ever. Hers was a quiet soul. She ran her household perfectly and her servants were contented; her husband lacked nothing that a good wife could provide, and he cherished her as a good husband should. But under the calm, unruffled surface that she presented, he could only guess at the pain that she must feel.

  For although Orlando had never spoken of it, Lawrence knew very well the intense grief his lack of children caused him. His religious faith might tell him to accept the will of God; and as a devout man he doubtless did—in his head. But in his heart, the desire for a family, for an heir, and above all, to fulfill that vow to their father—in the secret places of his heart these must have eaten at him every day. “He goes out by himself to the holy well at Po
rtmarnock, you know, every week,” Anne had confided to him some years ago. “He doesn’t tell Mary, but he did tell me.” And whatever his own views about such superstitions, Lawrence could hardly blame his brother. “I dare say,” he had remarked charitably, “that a man may pray there as well as any other place.” And no matter how carefully and kindly Orlando concealed it, Mary must have known what he did. She must have known his secret anguish and, with a pain of her own equal and even greater, surely blamed herself. Dear God, the Jesuit thought, if I supposed it would do any good, I’d go on my knees to pray at my father’s old well myself.

  When they finally came down and emerged into the open air, the sun was shining and the golden leaves on the trees in the park were gleaming against the bright blue sky. Just before they mounted their horses to return, Orlando indicated to his brother that he would like to speak to him in private on the way.

  They rode back in pairs. Anne and Walter led; Mary rode beside young Maurice, who, as he usually did, kept up a pleasant chatter; Orlando and Lawrence followed a little way behind.

  For several minutes, they went along in silence. Orlando seemed to be deep in thought, and Lawrence, not wishing to disturb him, waited for him to begin the conversation. He supposed it would concern the political situation.

  As far as the Jesuit was concerned, nothing much had changed. There had been some quite striking events. In England, the king’s favourite, Buckingham, had been murdered. Nobody was sorry about that, and English diplomacy, at least, had been more rational since then. In Dublin, they had watched the eclipse of Doctor Pincher. Their cousin Doyle had given them a gleeful account of how he had ruined the preacher’s reputation in his interview with the king. After the return of the delegation from London, the Graces had been promised and the king’s money, with some difficulty, raised. But the promised concessions to Catholics had not been followed through, and for a couple of years the English Protestant party had even begun to persecute the Irish Catholics again. True, things had finally started looking up when, a few years ago, the king’s trusted lieutenant, a blunt and powerful man called Wentworth, had come to rule Ireland for him. Wentworth favoured a formal and ceremonial Church and had made short work of the Puritan nonconformists. “I think we may take it,” Orlando had told him, “that the king is showing that he really is a friend to Catholics, just as he said.”