Lecture Five (part two) Wednesday 16th February
The 1641 -1652 war in Ireland
In this lecture I am going to look at the 1641-1652 war in Ireland through the experiences of a group that has not hitherto been examined. You can get the Catholic versus Protestant versions from the reading lists but you will not see anywhere the story I am about to tell you.
I am going to look at the period through the eyes and experiences of the settlers, the majority of whom had come from Scotland, and who settled mainly in Donegal but also in counties Derry and Tyrone.
The area in Donegal was known as the Laggan Valley and it was after this that the army the settlers raised in this area became known as the Laggan Army.
The period can be divided into the following subject areas.
[1] The Laggan Army’s responses to the 1641 rebellion
[2] Covenant or Cessation? Settler ideology in north-west Ulster, Sep 1643 to Oct 1645
[3] Parliamentary Ascendancy in Ireland, Oct.1645 to Sept. 1648.
[4] Derry’s other siege: The Laggan Army in the ‘British’ civil war, Sep.1648 to Dec.1650
The Laggan Army’s responses to the 1641 rebellion
On the evening of 22 October 1641, claiming a commission from the king, some natives of Ulster rose and attacked the settlers in their immediate vicinity. The wild and unplanned nature which it quickly assumed are best described by Richard Bellings, a contemporary to the proceedings:
But the surprisal of the Castle of Dublin being still presupposed by all of them, as a thing unquestionable, and no man considering what should be done in case of failure, the conspirators in Ulster, when news was brought them, that the plot was discovered, looked like men in a ship, which, riding at anchor between rocks and shallows, had broken her cable by the violence of a storm.
In mid and west Ulster, Sir Phelim O’Neill initially managed to seize some places of note. The domicile of Lord Caulfield, Charlemont Castle, was one of his first objectives. He took this with no resistance as the unsuspecting Caulfield invited O’Neill and his retinue into the castle for pleasantries, learning too late the real objectives of the visit. Charlemont was followed shortly afterwards by Dungannon, which the rebels got possession of on Saturday 23 October.
While O’Neill was securing the Protestant strongholds in his local area, septs from Derry, Donegal and Fermanagh similarly attacked settler tower houses and keeps in their localities, thus emphasizing the parochial nature of the rebellion, at least in its initial stages. The dominant sept in Tyrone the O’Neills for example, quickly surprised and overran the settler strongholds of Dungannon and Mountjoy, while the only location of significance to hold out against the Maguires in Fermanagh was Enniskillen. Further northwards the dominant Donegal septs of MacSweeneys and O’Donnells, after some hesitation, attempted the local strongholds but were everywhere repulsed by the levies hastily gathered by the settlers there. In Derry, the O’Cahans and O’Hagans were slightly more successful in that they initially captured Moneymore, Desertmartin and Magherafelt.
By the middle of November, almost all of Ulster outside of the north west, along with Antrim and North Down, had been overrun with the exception of isolated garrisons, such as Enniskillen, which held out under Sir William Cole. These initial successes of the rebels can be explained by the unreadiness of the establishment to meet this emergency.
When ‘Wentworth’s Army’ was disbanded in 1640, however, the original 2,000 veterans remained as the standing army. Of the 41 foot companies and 14 horse troops of the old standing army in 1641, only 9 companies and 4 troops were stationed in Ulster. Of these, only two, Sir William and Sir Robert Stewart’s companies, were quartered in the immediate vicinity of north-west Ulster and formed the nucleus for the Laggan Army.
While there were no available troops in Dublin to meet the initial threat, there was a large and well stocked magazine. And able-bodied refugees arriving in Dublin were hastily regimented and equipped from this arsenal.
While Dublin’s magazine was well equipped, with few experienced soldiers to put the weapons there to good use, the opposite was the situation in north-west Ulster, where there was no shortage of recruits but where munitions were in short supply.
This crucial deficiency was attributed to Wentworth, who ‘caused our best and most useful ordinance to be carried away from us’. In 1639 he had seen to it that many settlers, especially those of Scottish origin, were disarmed and forbidden to hold or store any arms except those which they might receive from the magazine at Dublin.
While Strafford’s earlier policies of disarming the settlers caused some initial handicaps, these were in some ways mitigated by the advance notice of the insurrection, along with the indecision on the part of the insurgents to assault the north-west Ulster settlers. Eleven days prior to the rebellion’s eruption, Sir William Cole apprised the Dublin government of a conspicuous increase in the number of suspicious persons entering the residences of Sir Phelim O’Neill and Lord Maguire. In addition, there was an immoderate degree of communication between these two lords and the Catholic gentry of the Pale. This supports the conclusion that the rebellion was not as spontaneously as was held by some historians as the rebels were planning in advance with the Old English.
It appears that, although the lords justices were forewarned about the intended rebellion, they deliberately procrastinated in any action to suppress it. For example, Cole’s warning was not the first to reach Dublin. In March 1641, the king, having received intelligence from his agents on the Continent, communicated to Dublin that there were many priests and military offices travelling between Ireland and the Continent, evidently organizing support for an insurrection.
On Thursday the 21 of October, Cole received more conclusive intelligence and, in accordance with the request of the lords justices, forwarded the actual date of the rebellion to them. This missive was apparently intercepted before it reached its destination or it was delivered but purposely ignored by the lords justices, Borlase and Parsons. The reasoning here is that they wanted the rebellion to take hold and wanted the Old English implicated in it before they would do anything.
Cole also sent no less than eighteen messengers (14 of whom were caught and hung by the rebels) to strongholds throughout west Ulster and elsewhere to facilitate preparedness among the settlers there. Additionally, refugees from mid-Ulster immediately began arriving in Coleraine and Derry, telling tales of rebel atrocities and apparent intentions.
It appears that a combination of Cole’s activities, the arrival of refugees, hesitation on the part of the rebels, and the relative distance of the Laggan Army’s domiciles from the rebellion’s original base, ensured that the settlers there were, to a certain extent, ready to meet the caveat when it finally arrived.
What gave them further breathing space, albeit for only a short space was the rebel’s declaration that they intended no harm to Scottish settlers. This allowed the settlers in Donegal and Derry to prepare themselves for the forthcoming assault.
The setters in Tyrone were not so fortunate, for they were caught completely off their guard. The depth of their surprisal was later eloquently conveyed to parliament by Audley Mervyn, a Tyrone settler:
The suddenness of our surprisal, and the nature of it, was so unexpected, that the inhabitants could scarce believe themselves prisoners, though in their chains, and the Irish servant which overnight was undressing his master in duty, the next morning was stripping master and mistress with a too-officious tyranny.
Sir William and Sir Robert Stewart are the two commanders credited with organizing the north-west Ulster settlers into what was to become the most efficient and impressive of all the military forces operating in Ireland at that time the Laggan Army, named after the Laggan valley, a fertile district in the barony of Raphoe, County Donegal.
They both were at their residences in Newtownstewart when the first of the warning horsemen carrying news of the rebel outburst reached them. An eyewitness has left an account which offers a window into the Stewart domicile on that ominous day:
I aspired to be a man as soon as I could: and therefore had a pick and a musket made to my size: and on 23 October 1641 was in the garden performing the postures of my arms with my grandfather, Sir William Stewart’s foot company; himself viewing his soldiers and their arms, and exercising them; when about four hours afternoon (to our amazement) a man half stripped, came with a letter signifying the insurrections, murders, and burnings on all sides, committed by the Irish … The messengers, one after the other came (sweating and out of breath) from divers quarters.
After dispatching warnings to the local strongholds, Sir William quickly gathered his family and relatives and hastened them to Coleraine and later to Derry, whence he dispatched all of them to Glasgow. His progeny secure, he immediately took steps to increase the size of his company which was then quartered at Raphoe. Simultaneously, Sir Robert, anticipating the king’s commission, immediately recruited his regiment from among the British settlers in the area. It was perhaps fortuitous for him that many of those settled in the area had prior military experience as many of them had served with Stewart during he 30 years war.
Confusion within settler society was the order of the day, because many of them, especially those originally from Scotland, had been led to believe by the rebels that no harm was intended them. Sir Phelim O’Neill had actually communicated to Sir William Stewart that ‘the intention of these troubles is nothing against your nation…I pray you inform your countrymen of our goodwill’.
During his initial retreat towards Derry, Sir William had taken the precaution of leaving a garrison of about 500 Scots settlers at Augher, under another William Stewart. Even though the rebels had indicated they had intended no harm towards the Scottish settlers, this entire complement of 500 men were deliberately massacred by the insurgents. That this particular massacre actually occurred was readily admitted by the rebels themselves who, shortly thereafter, aspired to atone for their deeds by soliciting a parley with the Scots in the area.
But for that ill favoured massacre near Augher, of those that were first taken to mercy, which did since cost much blood, and it were better that both the nations being formerly on should still so continue, and like brethren then to be at variance together.
This massacre had the effect of galvanizing the Scots settlers into a union with those originally from England, an alliance which spelt disaster to the rebels. One of the more immediate effects of this coalition was that the numbers in the Stewart brothers regiments were greatly enhanced by the arrival of a large complement of recruits from Tyrone. In addition, defence corps were formed in various towns and other places of strength in the area, and they were also brought under the command of the Laggan Army.
It was a mistake on the rebels behalf that they did not take Derry during the initial onslaught of the rebellion for it was poorly defended.
The Laggan Army, realizing the strategic importance of the city, hastily formed a security cordon around it. This protection allowed the inhabitants to gather as much arms and ammunition as they could and the City of London dispatched fifteen cannon and other supplies to Derry.
As a further security, the inhabitants both within the walls and in the immediate neighbourhood, entered into a ‘League’ for their mutual defence.
The Laggan Army’s third regiment was raised by Sir Ralph Gore from a combination of refugees and settlers in south Donegal. Once Ballyshannon was suitably fortified and garrisoned, Gore’s regiment immediately marched northwards, successfully relieving the settlers in central Donegal then under siege by the MacSweeneys and O’Donnells. This regiment then acted as a protective shield around a refugee camp which was hastily constructed. Their position grew ever more precarious when a number of Gaelic septs converged on the area, but Sir Robert Stewart quickly marched his regiment over the Barnesmore Gap to Gore’s relief. Realizing that they were exposed in the refugee encampment, Sir Robert made ready to escort the refugees back to Raphoe. Their route to safety took them back through the dangerous Barnesmore Gap, where they were ambushed by the Gaelic insurgents. Stewart’s regiment managed to defend their column. On arriving at their destination, the surviving women and children among the refugees were dispatched to Derry, while the able-bodied were recruited into the Laggan Army. Sir Ralph Gore, who apparently had been wounded in the campaign, died shortly after his arrival in Raphoe. His regiment came under the command of Audley Mervyn.
The fourth regiment commissioned into the Laggan Army was that of Sir William Cole, who raised, under the king’s commission, around 500 men from Enniskillen and its surrounding districts. This effectively brought the strength of the Laggan Corps to 4 regiments of foot and about 14 other companies, from Derry, Coleraine and Limavady, who joined with the Lagganeers at various times depending on the campaign strategies.
The exact numbers in the regiments and defence corps of north-west Ulster are hard to ascertain. Table 9 lists the foot raised for the Laggan Army in north-west Ulster between the outbreak of the rebellion and the end of 1642.
Regiments raised in north-west Ulster, 1641-2
Commander Number Place raised Commission Pay
Sir Robert Stewart 1,100 Donegal/Tyrone KC Y
Sir William Stewart 1,185 Donegal/Tyrone KC Y
Sir William Cole 500 Enniskillen KC Y
Colonel Audley Mervyn 1,000 South Donegal KC Y
Sir Thomas Staples 100 Derry KC Y
Capt. Michael Beresford 100 Derry KC Y
Capt. Hartwell 100 Derry KC Y
Capt. Newburgh 100 Derry KC Y
Simon Pitt 100 Derry PC Y
Henry Finch 100 Derry PC Y
Henry Osborne 100 Derry PC Y
John Kilner 100 Derry PC Y
Robert Lawson 100 Derry PC Y
Hewitt Finch 100 Derry PC Y
Dudley Philips 150 Limavady NC N
Thomas Philips 150 Limavady NC N
Sir William Hamilton 100 West Ulster PC Y
Capt. Borlase 50 Coleraine NC Y
Capt. Edmund Cousins 100 Coleraine NC Y
Capt. Thomas Church 100 Coleraine NC Y
Capt. Simon Hillman 100 Coleraine NC Y
Capt. Thomas Hillman 100 Coleraine NC Y
Capt. Godfrey Baker 50 Coleraine NC Y
Capt. George Church 100 Coleraine NC Y
Capt. Francis Hayward 50 Coleraine NC Y
Sir Edward Rowley 500 Coleraine NC N
While the Laggan Force initially came into being to protect the settler families of Derry and Donegal, the number of volunteers flocking to its ranks from the surrounding counties caused their area of protection to expand to encompass Fermanagh and north and west Tyrone. As a military fighting force they were shortly to achieve a status second to none and were soon to strike fear into the rebel armies. Lord Ernest Hamilton eulogized them when he stated:
The services rendered by the Laggan Force to the scattered British were of a remarkable nature. For nine years it acted as a protective force to the colonists of North-West Ulster, without meeting with a single reverse. Its unbroken record of victories, its astonishing mobility and incomparable daring entitle it to rank as one of the most remarkable armed forces in history.
Sir William, the original Office Commanding was soon superseded by his brother Robert, who, because of his more extensive military experience on the Continent, was a much more proficient leader and was mainly responsible for the extraordinary military successes achieved by this force. Robert’s loyalty to the king was beyond doubt, whereas William was, at times, suspected of parliamentarian leanings.
The primary objectives of this force were to secure their quarters in north-west Ulster and to rescue refugees from the outlying districts. The former strategy was achieved when they decisively defeated the rebels in two battles towards the end of June 1642. Up until that time there had been no full-scale rebel assault on the north west of the province. A combination of factors, not least of which was the presence of a large Scottish army which tended to remain in east Ulster, forced the rebels out of that area in search of ‘easier targets’, which they assumed could be found in the north west. Consequently, Irish rebels converged on Donegal only to find out too late that the settlers there were better prepared than had been anticipated. Commanded by Sir Phelim O’Neill, the rebel army, which was then comprised of members of many of the dominant Ulster septs, was drawn into a trap by the numerically inferior forces of Sir Robert Stewart. The latter allowed the rebels to march unmolested into Donegal, where they unsuspectingly struck camp at Glemaquin (near Raphoe), on the evening of 15 June and were completed routed the following morning by the Laggan Army. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, parliamentary propagandists not only informed the public of this great victory but also that their army in Ulster had taken Sir Phelim’s trunk ‘wherein was his crown wherewith he was crowned Prince of Ulster.
No matter that no crown was found, this particular battle proved decisive in that it allowed the Laggan Army to go on the offensive and not only to retake many of the garrisons then held by the rebels in the area, but also to relieve those still holding out for the settlers.
Sir Robert Stewart and his men immediately crossed into County Derry with the intention of clearing the rebels who had been besieging Coleraine. Ballykelly and Limavady were quickly relieved. The rebels, commanded by Manus O’Cahan ,attempted to check Stewart’s progress in the vicinity of Magilligan, but the Laggan men were again victorious, forcing the rebels to flee to the Sperrin Mountains where they were engaged and heavily defeated by the Stewart brothers’ forces . Eight hundred captured cows were delivered to the inhabitants and the Laggan men ‘stayed with them until they furnished themselves with fire and what other necessaries the county could offer’. After Coleraine, the Laggan Army withdrew, burning everything out of the immediate reach of the garrison which might prove of use to the remaining rebels in the vicinity. They returned to Donegal just in time to defeat another rebel force of 2,000 which had been intimidating Raphoe, then garrisoned by Sir William Stewart. The number and frequency of these defeats forced the rebels to retreat southward to Glasslough, County Monaghan, where their intention was apparently to disband and to fend for themselves. They had little choice, as the Laggan Army’s successes had crushed or at least paralyzed the rebellion in the north and west parts of Ulster
The rebels were on the verge of disbanding when news arrived that Owen Roe O’Neill had landed at Doe Castle in Donegal
The immediate effects of O’Neill’s landing was that the war was henceforth to be conducted with some degree of humanity whereby, at least in O’Neill’s case, non-military settlers were to be unmolested and all non-military prisoners were to be dispatched to Dundalk. O’Neill even threatened to join the British if there was a repeat of the massacres.
Once it became widely known that the Stewart brothers had taken the field and were recruiting, the north west was looked upon as the safest place in Ulster. That this is so is evidenced by the number of non-combatants who made their way there, either on their own initiative or by being escorted there by local defence corps, eager to be rid of non-military personnel. The area became a funnel into which refugees from south Donegal, Tyrone, Armagh and Fermanagh entered to be convoyed northwards by the Laggan Army until eventually converging mainly on the city of Derry which was then perhaps the safest place in Ulster, if not the whole of Ireland. Derry was a popular point of departure from which many of these refugees left Ireland for the relative safety of mainland Britain.
The only defeats sustained by the settler forces of north-west Ulster were those of the Coleraine defence corps who apparently made better refugees than soldiers. In comparison to the volunteers and conscripts of the Laggan regiments, many of whom were experienced soldiers, the Coleraine force was raised from among the unfortunates who fled there for safety.
Between the outbreak of the rebellion and the middle of April 1642, the Laggan Army was forced to provide both for itself and for the large number of refugees who were succoured in the region until such times as they could be conveyed safely to the British mainland. As Sir Robert Stewart wrote: ‘all this time we were not taken notice of by the parliament of England, nor did they know we were in being’. The only provisions which arrived in the area were those hastily sent there by the king. With the exception of these supplies, the Laggan Army was forced back on its own resources, which included a combination of the wealth of its officers and ‘what [they] pulled out of the rebel’s mouths’. Supply from England was important as when the king went to war with parliament there, both sides would only send supplies to those who would support it.
As military supplies grew scare in Ireland, the Laggan officers set up an elaborate scheme whereby merchants were commissioned in London, Scotland and Dublin to furnish needed supplies which were purchased from monies raised on the collateral of the Laggan officers estates. This practice, however, resulted in bringing many of the Laggan officers to the verge of poverty. The parliamentary-leaning lords justices petitioned the king, pointing out the dire straits into which many of Ulster’s settlers had fallen, but they knew full well that the king was unable to send supplies and that this would lower his esteem among the hungry settler armies. A Scots army of 10,000 arrived in Ulster in early 1642 but they would only supply those regiments who would support them and their parliamentary paymasters.
Despite this deficiency in supply, Sir Robert and Sir William Stewart managed as late as the end of 1642 to keep their regiments up to strength, even though they had not as yet received any arrears of pay from parliament. Sir Robert, more than most, supplied this force out of his own pocket. Merchants in the area were quick to exploit the situation, forcing the Laggan officers to enter into contracts to pay significantly more than the worth of supplies.
The greatest victory of the Laggan Army in the initial stages of the civil wars was that against Owen Roe O’Neill at Clones on Tuesday 13 June 1643. They had received intelligence that O’Neill’s army was lying unserviceable and about to retreat into Connacht. This provided a strategic moment for the Laggan Army to solidify its position in west Ulster. To have destroyed O’Neill’s army would have given military supremacy to the settlers in the north and south west, if not the whole of the province of Ulster. If O’Neill were allowed to retreat into Connacht, however, he would then be in a position to threaten, or even attack west Ulster. This retreat needed to be prevented, and the strategy agreed upon was that the Laggan men would confront O’Neill on the battlefield.
The Laggan forces were force marched towards Clones, the last reported position of O’Neill’s army. They met and defeated them heavily in Clones. The consequences of the battle should not go unnoticed. No matter that Owen Roe had the choice of the battleground, he was still completely outmanoeuvred by Sir Robert Stewart. Many of the experienced officers O’Neill brought with him to Ireland were either killed or taken prisoners. The loss of many of O’Neill’s continentally-trained officers was a heavy blow, not only to O’Neill’s forces, but also to the Catholic cause in general.
Throughout the initial stages of the rebellion, the divisions forming in England between the King and his parliament, were duplicated only in the relative safety of Dublin where those with parliamentary sympathies continually opposed those of royalist leanings. The further one travelled from Dublin, the less important these political divisions were. In north-west Ulster the settlers were fighting for their lives, families and properties so they had little time to give thought to the emerging difficulties between the king and the parliament.
Covenant or Cessation? Settler ideology in north-west Ulster
On 31 July 1643 Charles instructed Ormond to conclude a cessation with the organizing body of the insurgents, the Confederation of Kilkenny. The king badly needed troops from Ireland to prop up his sagging military position in England. Only the provinces of Leinster and Munster sent their soldiers to England, however, as the settler armies in Ulster were not requested to go there..
The cessation in Ireland constituted a major threat to the military position of the parliament in England. This was compounded by the risk that the impoverished situation, which they had deliberately allowed the settler forces in Ireland to degenerate into, would become public knowledge.
Prior to the cessation the parliamentary propagandists had portrayed the situation in Ireland as one in which the British armies were consistently victorious. Now, however, there was the danger that the parliamentary propaganda might be exposed - which would exonerate the king from the charges they had levelled against him (that he had been in league with the Catholic rebels).
In June 1643 the parliament implemented measures to prevent this by placing strict censorship on the press. While this served to silence their opponents, the parliament proceeded to publish a fresh batch of pamphlets depicting Catholic rebel atrocities and massacres, with the intention of disguising the king’s actual reasons for treating for a cessation of arms with the Irish rebels. It was their intention to implicate the king with the alleged rebel intentions of extirpating the Protestant religion. To achieve this aim, it was necessary to portray the Protestant settler troops arriving from Ireland as a ‘papist army’ in ‘search of Protestant blood’.
In Ireland, the cessation of 1643 was the first real test of the political ideology of the Protestant settlers. They were able, for the first time since the outbreak of the rebellion, to give thought to and possibly debate what was happening in England. Both the king and the parliament actively sought the aid of the settler armies in Ireland.
The royalists sought to forestall parliamentary attempts to gain settler allegiance by dismissing from office any persons suspected of either supporting parliament or who opposed the cessation. The lords justices were the first to fall victim to this policy.
The reality for the settlers in Ireland was that the cessation, while stripping the country of badly needed troops, was politically, economically and, more importantly, militarily expedient for them.
Because the Protestant settler armies outside Ulster were lacking the military supplies necessary to continue the war, a grievance which had been previously ignored by England, settlers chose to ignore the parliament’s petition for opposition, and instead adhered to the cessation as it was a welcome relief to the fighting and offered a means of replenishment.
This cessation with Irish Catholic rebels elicited different responses from not only the settler armies of Ireland but also from others not immediately affected by the conflict in Ireland.
The views of Protestants in England on the cessation can neatly be divided into those who supported the parliament and those who sided with the king. The former attitudes found expression in the propaganda pamphlets published at parliament’s instigation. The royalist attitudes, however, were perhaps best expressed in the writings of the mysterious ‘Mercurius Hibernicus’, who wrote a discourse on the Irish rebellion to defend the king. It was necessary to so do because;
There is not anything since these wars begun, whereof there hath been more advantage made, to traduce and blemish his Majesty’s actions, to alienate and embitter the affections of his people, to incite them to arms, and enharden them in the quarrel, than of the Irish affairs.
They go on to blame the parliament for the current impasse and stressed that Charles would not have had to agree to this cessation had the parliament not redirected, to their own ends, the men and supplies that were bound for Ireland.
An analysis of the factional pamphlets published in Ireland and England shortly after the signing of the cessation, along with the abundance of private correspondence on the matter, clearly shows that settlers in Ireland were capable of and in fact held, either a royalist or a parliamentarian ideology. Convictions ran so deep that they would soon lead to civil war in which neighbour fought neighbour.
The first of these pamphlets was published shortly after the signing of the cessation. It took the form of an address from a Protestant in Ireland to the house of commons in England. This writer, feeling it necessary to state his qualification, pointed out that:
No man looks upon this rebellion with more horror that I do: Few men have felt sadder effects of it, either in the exercise of the sword or fire my house burned and my two sons killed in cold blood.
Here was one of parliament’s ‘Poor Suffering Protestants’, yet one, who despite the mass of parliamentary propaganda to the contrary, prepared to lay the blame for the current impasse in Ireland directly on the house of commons. After pointing out the extreme necessities and wants of the settler armies in Ireland, he commended the king for coming to their rescue by redeeming them from the war by peace (cessation of hostilities).
Indeed if the King were guided by such sinister rules of policy and craft, as govern your actions, he would not have subject himself to the difficulties and hazard of recovering what you have with so much industry and cunning made desperate.
To chastise the parliament further, the writer accused it of having no other interest in Ireland, than to create a faction for its own ends: ‘Your purpose is not the desire and solicitation of the Kingdom, when you are put to these shifts, by force and fraud, by threats and promises to crowd the free-born subjects into a faction.’
Parliament’s counter to this was quick and decisive. In March 1644, the parliamentary-leaning Colonel Chidley Coote portrayed the cessation as destructive to the English interest in Ireland; or, as he himself puts it, the cessation was nothing more than a ‘trap to catch Protestants’. This particular pamphlet clearly supported the parliament, for it argued that victory over the rebels could be attained only with parliamentary support. It blamed the entire situation, especially the cessation, not on the king, but on ‘some self-ended counsellors’, who were advising the king.
A second pro-parliament pamphlet was produced by one Colonel Crawford, who wanted to ‘inform others by what wicked means that Kingdom of Ireland is betrayed, and to open the eyes of those who are not infallibly blind’. This directly indicted Ormond and the king for supporting the rebel cause and for doing more than most in destroying the English Protestant interest in Ireland. Another pamphlet worth noticing is one which appears not to supported either side in this polemic. Instead, it clearly adopts a middle line, pointing out their ‘miserable condition’, desires to ‘hear what likelihood of a reconciliation between his Majesty and parliament, for therein consists our comfort and our safety’.
The north-west settlers initially hesitated in either accepting or rejecting the cessation, so parliament determined to exploit this indecision promptly by sending ministers to Ulster to administer the Covenant to the settlers there.
The process by which the north-west Ulster settlers eventually came to oppose the cessation is complicated. It is characterized by both the parliament and the royalists engaging in an ideological battle for the hearts and minds of the settlers. It also caused great confusion among the armies in Ulster as they did not know which way to turn.
On 25 September 1643, the parliament in England took the Covenant and, in preparation for sending over the Covenant to Ireland, ordered the Committee for Irish Affairs to send James Trail to Ulster, ‘with such instructions as they shall think fit for the encouragement of the soldiers there to oppose the cessation’. Those accepting the Covenant in England and Scotland declared their intentions:
That the citizens of Scotland, England and Ireland living under one king, being of one reformed religion had entered into a material and Solemn League and Covenant for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction ... They undertook the extirpation of popery and prelacy, to preserve and defend parliamentary rights and the king’s person, and to purge the kingdoms of malignants or hinderers of reformation.
The administration of this Covenant on the settlers of Ulster was seen as a means to solidify the allegiances of the planters to parliamentarianism or, at best, to postpone their fidelity to the king. The taking of the Covenant, or the refusal of it, could be viewed as a definite political stand by Ulster settlers, and the parliament tendered it as the means by which the cessation would be opposed in Ulster.
To sort out the ideological confusion, the leaders of the Ulster Protestant armies convened a meeting on 2 January 1644 ‘to resolve upon what course is most fit for us to take in all the extremities of wants and dangers.’ To take the Covenant would incur the displeasure of the king; not to take it would displease the parliament who were their nominal paymasters. The settlers’ aim, which was quite impossible, was to make it appear to parliament that they wholly supported it, while at the same time preserving their allegiance to the king.
By 4 April 1644, almost all of the settlers from Antrim and Down had accepted the Covenant. The Presbyterian ministers next targeted the regiments of the Laggan Army but, as they were shortly to find, these were not going to be so willingly or easily converted.
It was at this stage that the divisions in the English polity entered into north-west Ulster life. The mayor, Robert Thornton, had in his possession two documents - one from parliament requesting that the Covenant should be accepted and the other from the king, prohibiting acceptance of it. While it appears that both sides were manoeuvring closer to civil war in north-west Ulster over this issue, the Presbyterian ministers thought it an opportune moment to play the trump card. They pointed out provisions that would immediately be forthcoming from parliament – and they should compare that with the support or actions of the royalists. In other words, they had a choice between the corrupt disposition of those [Royalists] who then ruled in Dublin, with the experience they had found of their small help, or what could be expected from them [Parliament]
The settlers of the north west had a simple decision to make: they could accept the Covenant and receive badly needed supplies to gain their primary objective, the defence of their property. Alternately, they could refuse the Covenant and continue to fend for themselves. By way of a further incentive to the settlers the ministers agreed to tone down the oath and required that those accepting it had only to covenant to ‘maintain religion, the honour and happiness of the king, the peace and safety of the three kingdoms’. The majority of those in the city and surrounding districts then accepted the Covenant as a means to pursue their objective of protecting their property.
Parliament’s policy of fielding the Covenant in opposition to the cessation now appeared successful. By the end of 1644 all the Ulster settler armies and most of its leaders had, by accepting the Covenant, technically rejected the cessation.. This acceptance, however, must not be taken as an absolute sign of parliamentary sympathies among the settlers in Ulster. It was merely an economic, political and, perhaps most importantly, a militarily expedient thing to do, as the parliament, however nominally, was still their paymasters and provided the only opportunity to receive any compensation for their military service to date.
The rejection of the cessation by the Ulster settlers, and the acceptance of it by the Protestant armies in each of the other three provinces, ensured that the Confederation was now able to concentrate its forces in engaging the Ulster settlers and their Scots allies. The Confederation mustered an army of 6,000 foot and 600 horse and sent them northwards. Castlehaven was to co-operate with Owen Roe O’Neill, who indicated that he could supply 4,000 foot and 400 horse. The Confederate force appeared determined to attack the British forces, commanded by Monroe, which were then in the vicinity of Dromore, County Down. On receiving intelligence of this, Monroe immediately requested the Laggan Army to march to his assistance. Castlehaven engaged Monroe’s forces as planned and, in the skirmish which followed, the British lost some men. As the Laggan Army approached in an obvious flanking manoeuvre, Castlehaven ordered an immediate retreat. Attacking the east Ulster regiments was one thing, but he was not prepared to face the Laggan Army.
The end of this particular campaign ushered in a temporary lull in the fighting which allowed the king an opportunity to bring the two sides to the table. To this end he convened a meeting at Oxford with the intention of solving his ‘Irish problem’. Delegates from all sides arrived to argue their case. The north-west Ulster settlers were represented by Sir William Stewart and Sir Francis Hamilton, while the parliamentary supporters among Irish Protestants were represented by Sir Charles Coote and Colonel Michael Jones.
The divisions that were simmering beneath the surface in Irish settler society could be seen in the differences between the two groups. When Coote presented proposals allegedly on behalf of Irish Protestants, the delegation from west Ulster distanced itself from these demands, which to them were too extreme and, in relation to the king and parliament, unconstitutional.
It appears that the north-west Ulster settlers, constituted as they were into the Laggan Army, accepted the Covenant, not out of any conviction, but merely because they were aware that Monroe, the leader of the Scottish army in Ireland, was shortly to receive a large supply of provisions, a share of which was to be provided to the Laggan Army. In fact, when these supplies finally arrived none was sent in that direction. Consequently, many settlers began once again to show their true allegiance and threatened a return to the royalist fold.
They also drew up a bond of union between all the settler regiments in Ulster whereby all would subscribe to an oath and include their names on a protestation to be directed to parliament.
Ormond, realizing the opportunity to gain this formidable force for the king, offered to ‘touch gently upon the[ir] taking of the covenant, rather as an error than a crime’. The end result of these delicate power-plays was that, as neither side could supply the provisions requested by the Laggan Army, the settlers reserved the right to operate as an independent force, a body which, according to Carte, was ‘certainly the best in the whole kingdom’.
Parliament sent over money and supplies to Ulster. Their arrival, however, created a new phase in the quest for loyalties as the supplies were accompanied by commissioners who were to ‘reside with the British and Scottish forces in Ireland … for the better carrying on the war of Ireland’. Recognizing the importance of the Laggan Army, and of the previous threat of a withdrawal of loyalties, the commissioners saw to it that the vast majority of both the money and supplies was handed over to Stewart and his men.
The intervention of these commissioners in Ulster matters brought the affairs and complications of the struggle on mainland England into local politics and was to result in a growing resentment not only towards the commissioners, but also towards their parliamentary paymasters.
Covenant or cessation? This was the major choice faced by the settlers of Ireland in general and Ulster in particular. By accepting and adhering to the cessation (or rejecting it and accepting the Covenant), the settler armies in Ulster appeared to be outwardly expressing their loyalties. But there was much more to it than that because many (particularly the members of the Laggan Army) accepted the Covenant, not out of any ideological attachment to the parliamentary cause but more out of economic necessity. This is evident from their initial opposition to the Covenant which forced the ministers to tone down the text to make it more conducive to the parochial considerations of the Laggan Army.
The north-west Ulster settlers gave their primary allegiance to their landed interests; anyone who could further this objective received their support. They returned to the royalist fold when parliament reneged on its promise to both pay and supply the Laggan Army on a continual basis.
Parliamentary Ascendancy in Ireland, Oct.1645 to Sept.1648.
For a short time the parliamentary commissioners in Ulster achieved some successes for their paymasters, due mainly to the supplies and money which they had brought with them. According to Carte, ‘everything bowed before their power’. Recognizing the military importance of the Laggan Army, and of their previous threat to withdraw their loyalties, the commissioners saw to it that the vast majority of the money and supplies was handed over to the Laggan men. Another ‘weapon’ used to win their loyalty was another round of propaganda pamphlets.
Another more serious threat to the machinations of the commissioners, and which forced them back upon the Scots for the maintenance of their position, was the large Catholic army, under Owen Roe, descending upon Ulster. Fully provisioned and armed by Rinuccinni, O’Neill marched northwards where, after some manoeuvring, he eventually engaged and heavily defeated Monroe at Benburb in early June 1646.
It was fortunate for O’Neill that the Laggan Army had not been present at Benburb, when the Scots and east Ulster settler armies were destroyed by the Gaelic general. While that particular battle was being waged in Tyrone, Sir Robert Stewart was marching his men towards Connacht, a manoeuvre which he was instructed to execute by the ill-fated Monroe in an attempt to divert O’Neill’s army from its descent on Ulster. On hearing of the outcome of the battle, however, the Laggan men returned to their base and made ready for an expected attack, which never materialized as Owen Roe was diverted elsewhere. The consequences of Benburb on Ulster affairs was, for a time, quite profound. It destroyed the Scottish and most of the east Ulster settler regiments, leaving the Laggan Army as the only effective fighting force in that province.
This victory, albeit for a short time, placed Owen Roe in a position where he could, on the orders of Rinuccinni, his paymaster, oppose the peace measures then in train between Ormond and the Catholic Confederacy. The first objective of this anti-peace force was to besiege the poorly defended Dublin, then garrisoned by a small royalist force under Ormond, who, on 29 September, faced by the rebel armies of Owen Roe and Preston, had little course open to him but to apply to Parliament for support.
Parliament sent over 1,000 foot and over 200 horse to Ireland and, on 19 June 1647, Ormond
handed Dublin over to the parliament and left Ireland. He also issued orders to the garrisons owing allegiance to the royalist cause in Ireland, requiring them to admit parliamentarian forces into their respective places, and for the future to observe and perform all such orders as they might receive from any of its commissioners
The parliamentarian forces in Ireland immediately went on the offensive against the Catholic rebels but were greatly hindered in their quest by the lack of support given them by the English parliament, which was itself becoming further divided by ideological differences.
In November 1647, Parliament ordered a mustering of all the troops under its command with a view to marching on the rebel strongholds of Connacht. Most of the Laggan Army refused to engage for this service and did not attend the muster.
Although the Laggan men refused service to Parliament, the same was not the case for the east Ulster settler regiments; these aided parliament in defeating Preston’s Catholic army at Dungans Hill, handing to the Confederates their most decisive defeat since the beginning of the rebellion. The Laggan Army, for its part, remained in a defensive posture along its southern borders, as Owen Roe and his army were then in North Connacht. Finding this route into Ulster blocked, Owen Roe turned towards east Ulster, meaning to finish what was denied him after the battle of Benburb – and to obtain complete victory over the settler armies of east Ulster. To this end, he marched his army there, only to be met by Monck and Lord Conway’s regiment, who roundly defeated him.
The Laggan Army’s policy of refusing service to parliament must be seen in light of the turn of events in England, where the army, aided by the Independent party, began to assert its authority and marched on parliament. While imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, the king signed a secret treaty with Scottish commissioners, due mainly to the revolutionary turn which the civil war had taken in England. Ormond was made party to this treaty, and it was agreed that while the Scots commissioners would engage Scotland, Ormond would similarly engage Ireland for the king. In this light, settlers in Ireland were to become part of this overall royalist plan, known as the ‘Engagement’. Parliament responded by imprisoning most of the Laggan Officers, especially those with royalist leanings.
This remained the situation until a curious event occurred in Munster, on 3 April 1648. On this date the Irish Protestant, Lord Inchiquin, who had been carrying all before him in the name of parliament, assembled his regiments (primarily constituted of Protestant settlers), and declared once again for the king.
Inchiquin’s actions were part of a carefully conceived plan whereby Irish settlers were to participate in the second ‘British civil war’. The fact that he was forced to reveal his hand earlier than expected, however, made it that much more difficult for the Ulster settlers to carry out their part of the overall plan.
On 17 August, the Scottish ‘Engager’ army, led by the Duke of Hamilton, was roundly defeated at Preston, and parliament immediately seized this moment to rid itself of any persons with royalist proclivities in Ulster.
Ormond’s departure in July 1647 simplified, at least on paper, the military situation in Ireland as it left, albeit for a short time, only two opposing sides - parliament against the Catholic rebels. Traditionally, the historiography of the period has tended to concentrate on the alliances between Gaelic and Old English Catholics, thereby ignoring the Protestant settlers who polarized and fought ‘British’ civil war battles in Ireland over the ideological differences that emerged between English republicans and royalists.
Derry’s other siege: The Laggan Army in the ‘British’ civil war, Sep.1648 to Dec.1650
Towards the end of September 1648, in accordance with a pre-arranged plan, Ormond returned to Ireland to reawaken the royalist cause. Ormond was determined to carry on the conflict in Ireland to further the king’s position there. He stated the royalist policy quite clearly in a Declaration published at Cork on 6 October 1648 In it, he called all the people of Ireland to assist him in the recovery of his majesty’s just rights. Realizing that Irish Catholics and Protestants did not make good ‘bed-fellows’, he assured the latter by undertaking to use his utmost endeavours to protect the reformed religion, declaring that ‘no distrust from former difficulties in judgement, should be allowed to qualify his majesty’s gratitude towards those who now rallied to his services’. Ormond knew that the ‘only visible means of saving his majesty’s life, and retrieving his affairs, was the uniting of all Ireland under his obedience’. This was a monumental obstacle that Ormond faced - to unite the Catholics and Protestants of Ireland in common cause for the king without alienating either side. He asked them to unite because ‘the power of that kingdom [England] hath unhappily devolved to hands employed onely in the art and labour of pulling down and subverting the fundamentals of monarchy’.
His dilemma was simplified by occurrences in England when, on 30 January 1649, Charles I was executed and the whole aspect of affairs in Ireland was transformed. The effect of this event was, for a short time, to cause Irish Protestants and Catholics to combine against the forces of the Independents; and in fact; it so polarised the settlers that they turned their guns on each other in what was to become Ireland’s first civil war. Ormond’s second biographer lamented:
After the lapse of more than two and a half centuries, that catastrophic event still holds a solemnity and significance which no other episode in our history retains. To the men of that generation it was as if the solid earth had failed beneath their feet.
Parliamentary garrisons went over en masse to the royal cause, including many officers serving under Colonel Michael Jones in Dublin, who described the situation in a correspondence with the Speaker of the house of commons: ‘This may be called a second general rebellion, the former was only of Irish [Catholics] this of Scots and malignant English [Irish Protestants] into whom is joined many of the like spirit, these daily flock to them.’
The ideological propaganda battles to win the hearts and minds of settlers in Ireland continued apace. The accusations levelled at the Independents in Parliament by Ormond, Inchiquin and the Belfast Presbytery so threatened the parliamentary position in Ireland that the Independents sought John Milton's literary talents for invective, to counter the aspersions levelled at them by Ormond. Milton caused the Articles of Peace that Ormond had signed with the Catholics to be published along with Ormond's letters to Michael Jones and the Representation of the Belfast Presbytery. In Milton's ‘Observations on the Articles of Peace’ he attacked Ormond for his slur on Cromwell, who, he argued
hath done in few years more eminent and remarkable deeds whereon to found Nobility in his house, though it were wanting, and perpetual Renown to posterity, than Ormond and all his ancestors put together can show from any record of their Irish exploits, the widest scene of their glory.
To Ormond's accusation that only the ‘dreggs and Scum of the house of commons remains’, Milton replied, ‘this reproach and in the mouth of an Irishman concerns not them onely, but redounds to apparent dishonour of the whole English Nation’. Though Milton was a master propagandist, he failed to answer Ormond’s central charge of the legitimacy of a parliament without a king.
A counter to these parliamentary aspersions can be found in Eikon Basilike, an outstanding piece of royalist propaganda. The Ulster settlers became so inflamed at the graphic descriptions of the death of their monarch contained in this pamphlet, that they readily joined Ormond. Nowhere can this be better seen than in north-west Ulster, the domicile of the once great Laggan Army, whose actions had been temporarily suspended by the conduct of Coote.
Parliament tried to legitimize its execution of the king in the eyes of Irish settlers by causing to be published three intercepted letters which showed not only the dead king’s complacency with the rebels, but also that of his son, the recently proclaimed Charles II.
Parliament was obviously attempting to disguise or mitigate the regicide and the subsequent emergence of republicanism by portraying the situation in Ireland strictly along sectarian grounds.
Again the settlers within this army set themselves up as an example to the other colonists when they openly declared against parliament and forcibly cast off the republican yoke which Coote had placed them under in 1647. They did this in spite of the fact that they knew they would immediately be perceived as traitors parliament, who had previously ordered that
all such English and Scots, and all others, that have engaged for the parliament of England…and have revolted from that service, and all such as have or shall adhere unto or join with Charles Stuart (eldest son of the late King)…are traitors, and shall have their estates confiscated, and their persons proceeded against by martial law.
The Laggan Army, on 28 March 1649 commenced a siege of Derry then been held for the parliament under Sir Charles Coote. This was to last for some months and which could be called ‘Derry’s forgotten siege’. There were many similarities between this and Derry’s better known siege of 1689. Its defenders were reduced to the point of starvation, but Coote, the governor, was no Lundy and no apprentices were needed to prevent the gates from being opened to the besiegers. Unlike the more famous siege, the early days of this first attempt on the city was characterized by the numbers of its garrison who promptly went over the wall to the Laggan men. Realizing the importance of the place, however, Coote, perhaps in anticipation of such desertions, had with him some of his Connacht settler army and 800 recently arrived parliamentary troops.
Coote prepared for the siege by levelling all the buildings in the suburbs that might otherwise have supplied cover to the besiegers. He also administered the first (albeit small but nevertheless significant) defeat on the Laggan Army when, on 23 April, he sallied out from the city to confront the Laggan Army. A number of the Laggan officers and soldiers were killed in the skirmish: it was the first time since the beginning of the ‘British’ civil war that Irish settlers killed fellow Irish settlers on the battlefield. People who had once been neighbours and who had fought alongside each other against the threat posed by the Catholic insurgents, now found themselves fighting and killing each other. The civil war had finally come to Ireland.
On 26 May 1649, there was great rejoicing among the Lagganeers besieging Derry when both Sir Robert Stewart and Colonel Audley Mervyn, who had recently escaped from their confinement in London, returned to north-west Ulster. Sir Robert had with him a commission from the exiled Charles II which returned him to his previous leadership of the force. This produced only disappointment in one officer, Alexander Stewart, who had been the nominal leader since Sir Robert's arrest. Rather than relinquish his command to serve under his old leader, Alexander crossed over to England to continue the struggle there. This appears to have been the practice of quite a few settlers who saw it as the answer to their ideological dilemma of how to serve their king without serving alongside Catholic rebels.
All across Ulster, town after town heeded Ormond's summons and went over once again to the royalist cause. Monck, previously in control of almost all of east Ulster, had been forced southward to Dundalk, thereby leaving Derry as the only place in Ulster holding out for the parliament. The nature of the struggle was soon to change, however, when Sir George Monroe arrived at the head of a large force of native Irish and Highlanders. Although they had come to assist the Laggan Army’s siege, it was obvious immediately that they were not welcome.
While there was as yet no open division among the besiegers, they made it known that they did not like the idea of having this army of Catholics join with them. The parliament propagandists were not slow to emphasize the Catholic composition of Monroe’s forces, especially as it offered some justification for the deaths of Irish settlers at the hands of fellow settlers
While it was a welcome sight to the garrison to see many of the besiegers ‘taking their departure in great haste and in considerable numbers’, those who remained continued the siege. It was early in August when it was eventually lifted, not because of the arrival of any parliamentary forces but rather because of aid which Coote received from the most unlikely of sources - Owen Roe O'Neill and his Gaelic Catholic army. Owen Roe had brought his army to Ballykelly, within sight of the besiegers. Rather than risk an encounter with O’Neill which would give Coote free reign to sally out from the city and fall on their rear, they raised the siege. This was followed shortly thereafter by O'Neill’s triumphant entry into the city where he and his Gaelic army were warmly received by Coote and his men. In addition to the arrival of O'Neill, another motive for the Laggan Army’s breaking off the siege was the news that Ormond had been disastrously defeated on the plains of Rathmines outside of Dublin. Sir Robert Stewart, realizing that the king's cause was lost in north-west Ulster, hastened south to Ormond were he was present at the Council of War held at Drogheda on 23 August 1649.
When word trickled back to England that Protestant settlers were killing each other in Ireland, parliament thought it necessary to launch another round of anti-Catholic propaganda, hoping that some of the hatred for these Catholic rebels might be transferred to the Irish settlers then in league with them.
It appears that the coming conflict between Cromwell and Ormond was not to be a straightforward one between Irish ‘nationalism’ and English ‘conquerors’, the scenario so often found in nationalist historiography; there was nothing nationalistic about the siege of Derry where Irish settlers began killing each other over the issues raised by the execution of the king. Cromwell's reasons for going to Ireland were twofold; first, to deal with the dangerous royalist rising, which had been planned as part of the overall engagement strategy; second, to dispose of the Catholic ‘insurgents’, so that their land could be handed over to those who had financed the parliamentary campaign against the king in the early 1640s.
The royalist army that Cromwell met in Ireland in August 1649 was disunited and divided. Before hiss arrival, Jones routed Ormond’s army outside Dublin, and this, followed closely as it was by the fall of Drogheda, altered the entire course of events in Ireland.
After the fall of Drogheda, the execution of the garrison there was as much a warning to the remaining royalists still in the field as it was to the Catholic armies. Cromwell dispatched three regiments under the command of Colonel Venables northwards to bring Ulster once more under parliamentary control.
On 1 October, after a minor skirmish, Belfast was surrendered to parliament. The garrison of Lord Montgomery's regiment was given the opportunity to renounce their allegiance to the king; on refusing, however, the entire garrison with their families were turned out of the city. Belfast’s fall left Carrickfergus the only remaining place of strength on the east coast still holding out for the king. Here also, due in the main to Venables’ receiving reinforcements from Coote, the garrison of Carrickfergus quickly surrendered on 13 December 1649 Shortly thereafter Venables ordered that a new oath of engagement was to be tendered to all the settlers of the area whereby they were required to swear to be ‘faithful to the commonwealth of England as now established, without a king or House of Lords’. This was the third ‘oath’ to be administered in Ulster since 1643, when parliament sent over the Covenant in opposition to the cessation.
In the north west, things went little better for the Laggan Army, which was by then virtually useless as a fighting force due to the divisions within its ranks. The major split appears to have been along ethnic lines. The majority of the English settlers in the army went over to parliament under Coote, while those originally from Scotland appear to have continued the struggle for their king. To a certain extent, this ethnic division was provoked by Bishop MacMahon and his Catholic army who had specifically indicated their intention that we shall make no distinction or difference between ourselves and so many of the Scottish ... that now shall (as we write them) with heart and hand join in his Majesties service.
Shortly after the siege of Derry was lifted, Coote began to receive letters from the north-west Ulster settlers entreating him to accept their submission and to grant them protection. To further this end, on 13 August, five members of the Laggan Army parleyed with Coote, requesting that they be allowed to return to their homes after submitting to parliament.
Determined to stamp out this royalist resistance in north Ulster, Coote, marched his army (which now included many former Laggan men), towards the reported position of the royalist forces under Montgomery, Monroe and Clanbrassil. It had been the royalist intentions to invest Belfast, especially as they had been informed that Ormond was dispatching aid to them for that purpose. The battle took place on the plains of Lisnagarvey on Thursday, 6 December 1649, and was the bloodiest ‘British’ civil war battle fought on Irish soil. Coote had sent out two former Laggan officers, Major Gore and Captain Dunbar, in advance of the main force, to try and bring the royalist forces to an engagement. The result of this full-scale battle was that Coote’s forces carried the day, killing upwards of 1,000 settlers and taking many others prisoners. This was perhaps the blackest day, with the exception of the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641, for Ulster’s settlers. The policies emanating from the divisions over which the king and parliament had gone to war, had polarized Ulster’s settlers to such a degree that former neighbours, who previously had been allies in the face of the Catholic rebel threat, now found themselves killing each other. Those lucky enough to escape the fate which befell many of their fellow soldiers in arms escaped southward, where they joined the garrison at Enniskillen, still holding out for the king. People in other parts of Ireland could not believe the ferocity settlers were showing to each other, in their efforts to prosecute the war in the North. It led one to exclaim, ‘This is strange news and much affects us here’. A closer examination of the prevailing situation, however sheds much light on the reasons The opposition of these north-west Ulster settlers towards parliament appears to have declined as a direct result of the election, at Belturbet, of a Catholic Bishop to the command of the Catholic a army formerly controlled by Owen Roe O'Neill. This election alone can be seen as one of the biggest errors committed by the Catholic forces in Ireland as it was perhaps what decided the Laggan Army to cease to support the king.
While the royalism of many of these Lagganeers was obviously rooted in deep conviction, the mere thought of their having to ally themselves with and support an army commanded by a Catholic bishop was enough to ensure that they could no longer support that cause in Ireland. Besides this, parliament also published the recent declaration of the bishop and his army, along with observations. It was intended to dissuade those Scottish settlers of the North West who believed in the bishop’s promise of favour and protection. To these, parliament pointed out;
And yet these poor Scots must be bored through the nose with a bulrush, and made believe that this interest and their Kirk-Interest are very reconcilable.
Those settlers who did not return to their homes in north-west Ulster, crossed over to England and Scotland where they could more readily continue their support for their king without the added difficulty of having to do so under command of a Catholic prelate.
On 14 April 1650, it was arranged that the remaining loyalist stronghold in Ulster, Enniskillen, was to be surrendered to Coote for £500 with leave for as many of the garrison as wished to travel to Scotland. With the fall of Enniskillen, all of the settler armies in Ulster had left for Scotland or other parts; had been won over to the parliamentary cause; or had agreed to return to their homes and do nothing prejudicial to that cause.
The Catholic army under Bishop MacMahon was greatly affronted by the actions of the Laggan Army and immediately began offensive manoeuvres in Donegal and Derry. This had the effect of galvanizing those Laggan men who chose to return home to arm themselves again. It would seem that the struggle had come full circle as they found themselves taking up arms once more in defence of their property (exactly what had called the Laggan Army into being in 1641). As there was no royalist force then in the field, the re-mobilized settlers had no choice but to join with parliamentary forces under Coote, who had by then reorganized the original regiments of the Laggan force into two.
The bishop drew up before Dungiven and ordered the garrison’s commander, Michael Beresford, to surrender it to the king. Beresford refused and, in the resulting storm, all inside the fort were put to the sword. Shortly thereafter, MacMahon asked the gentry of counties Derry and Donegal to come in to him forthwith lest they suffer the same fate as the Dungiven garrison. The bishop was here assuming, as Sir Phelim O'Neill had done a decade before, that this small force of settlers was an easy target. Accordingly, he marched on the area and, after a short skirmish in which a number of settlers were killed, withdrew his army to Letterkenny. The settlers of the area, faced by this large Catholic army, were too few to engage in any offensive manoeuvres, so they decided to make their stand on the peninsula of Inishowen. The arrival of parliamentary reinforcements on 18 June alleviated their plight. Coote, along with the remnants of two Laggan regiments who now supported him, began offensive manoeuvres. On 21 June, they engaged the bishop’s army which had taken up defensive positions at Scarriffhollis. Coote used the two Laggan regiments in his initial assault. Such was the ferocity of this initial charge by the Laggan men that the bishop’s army was quickly turned; the rest of Coote’s forces then joined in pursuit, killing many of the fleeing army.
This victory was the last field battle to be fought in the province until the Jacobite threat of the 1680s. When the last remnants of the Irish Catholics surrendered in 1652, Ormond and the Protestant royalists had long since left the field of battle, either under individual articles of surrender, or under the general articles concluded with Cromwell on 26 April 1650.