ynod at
James-town, that nothing short of necessity should induce him to quit
Ireland without the order of the king; and the commissioners of trust
expostulated[e] with the bishops on their imprudence and presumption. But
at this moment arrived copies of the declaration which Charles had been
compelled to publish at Dunfermling, in Scotland. The whole population was
in a ferment. Their suspicions, they exclaimed, were now verified;

[Footnote 1: Ponce, Vindiciae Eversae, 236-257. Clarendon, viii. 151, 154,
156. Hibernia Dominicana, 691. Carte, ii. 118, 120, 123.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 10.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. August 11.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. August 12.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. August 31.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. Sept. 2.]

their fears and predictions accomplished. The king had pronounced them a
race of "bloody rebels;" he had disowned them for his subjects, he had
anulled the articles of pacification, and had declared[a] to the whole
world that he would exterminate their religion. In this excited temper of
mind, the committee appointed by the bishops published both the declaration
and the excommunication. A single night intervened; their passions had
leisure to cool; they repented[b] of their precipitancy; and, by the advice
of the prelates in the town of Galway, they published a third paper,
suspending the effect of the other two.

Ormond's first expedient was to pronounce the Dunfermling declaration a
forgery; for the king from Breda, previously to his voyage to Scotland, had
solemnly assured him that he would never, for any earthly consideration,
violate the pacification. A second message[c] informed him that it was
genuine, but ought to be considered of no force, as far as it concerned
Ireland, because it had been issued without the advice of the Irish privy
council.[1] This communication encouraged

[Footnote 1: Carte's letters, i. 391. Charles's counsellors at Breda had
instilled into him principles which he seems afterwards to have cherished
through life: "that honour and conscience were bugbears, and that the
king ought to govern himself rather by the rules of prudence and
necessity."--Ibid. Nicholas to Ormond, 435. At first Charles agreed to find
some way "how he might with honour and justice break the peace with the
Irish, if a free parliament in Scotland should think it fitting" afterwards
"to break it, but on condition that it should not be published till he had
acquainted Ormond and h