Commentarius Rinuccinianus

Introduction

This account of the nunciature of Archbishop Gianbattista Rinuccini in Ireland, written in Italy between 1661-1666 by two Irish clerics, Richard O’Ferrall and Robert O’Connell, provides a unique insight into the political, diplomatic, religious and military history of Counter-reformation Ireland, Britain and Europe during the wars of the three kingdoms (1639-52). In addition to a detailed narrative of the period, the Commentarius contains Latin copies of documents, many of which were destroyed in two great fires in Dublin, in 1711 and 1922. A report on the Commentarius for the Historical Manuscripts Commission in 1871 stated that it was 'impossible to speak too strongly’ of its importance’, and a translated edition was one of four key texts which J.T. Gilbert, the Commissioner of Manuscripts, recommended for publication.¹

A six-volume Latin edition, by Stanislaus Kavanagh for the Irish Manuscripts Commission, appeared between 1932 and 1949 but was accessible only to those with specialist language skills. This project makes a full English translation, including new indexes available to scholars for the first time. Project research revealed that Robert O’Connell, one of the authors of the Commentarius, also wrote The Historia, an unpublished 800-page history of the Irish Capuchins. This is in the process of translation.

Rinuccini in Ireland

GianBattista Rinuccini, (1592-1653) was born in Rome on 15 September 1592 to a wealthy Florentine family of noble stock.² Educated by the Jesuits, he later studied law at Bologna and Perugia before graduating with a doctorate in canon law from Pisa in 1614.³ He practised law under Monsignor Buratti until the chronic ill health, which dogged him throughout his life, forced him to return home. The Curia, or Roman civil service, quickly recognised Rinuccini’s brilliance as a jurist and assisted by the patronage of influential papal advisers, he rapidly advanced through the cursus honorum of the Vatican. Pope Gregory XV named him Chamberlain of Honour and Secretary to the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Rites. Under his successor, Urban VII, Rinuccini was appointed First Civil Lieutenant of the Cardinal Vicar in 1625, probably through the good offices of his uncle Cardinal Bandini, archbishop of Fermo.⁴ He remained in post until his appointment as Nuncio Extraordinary to the Confederation of Kilkenny in 1645 by Pope Innocent X.

The Confederate Catholics of Ireland

The catholic confederate association was formed by the clergy and landed elites in the aftermath of the rising by the native Irish of Ulster in October 1641. They sought to re-establish law and order, gain control over the insurgency and protect themselves from attacks by the avenging forces of the English colonial administration in Dublin. In July 1642 an oath of association committed Irish Catholics, both native Irish and Old English, to assert their political and religious rights as loyal subjects of the king.⁵ Although the first General Assembly in October 1642 disavowed any parliamentary pretensions it effectively operated as the legislature of the new association. The appointment of an executive Supreme Council in November, and provincial councils thereafter, created a sophisticated hierarchy of government, which controlled much of Ireland throughout the 1640s. From the very outset, however, personal enmity and ethnic rivalry between the Old English and native Irish, exacerbated by exiles returning from the continent, created serious internal divisions. The main split occurred over proposed peace terms with the king, with a peace faction anxious for an immediate settlement and a clerical faction, supported by the dispossessed native Irish, demanding major religious and political concessions.

The appointment of a papal nuncio to Ireland arose in part as a response to lobbying by the exiled Irish religious community in Rome. Father Luke Wadding (1588-1657), Provincial of the Franciscans, founder of St. Isidore’s college in Rome (1625) and a pioneer in establishing a network of Irish colleges on the continent, emerged as an influential advisor on Irish affairs at the papal court.⁶ Wadding, appointed as envoy to Rome by the confederates in November 1642, secured funds for the return to Ireland of the Ulster Irish general Owen Roe O’Neill and the subsequent despatch of a papal envoy, Father PierFrancesco Scarampi with arms and money in 1643.⁷ Wadding also acted as an advisor to Rinuccini before his departure for Ireland and his influence is evident in the instructions issued to the nuncio.⁸ For instance, as regards the king’s lord lieutenant, the protestant James Butler, marquis of Ormond, Rinuccini was advised to 'discover dexterously’ who had influence and authority over the marquis, ‘...for he is not only Irish, and by some thought to be a Catholic in secret, certainly born of Catholic parents, a Catholic till his sixteenth year, and was then sent to England where he imbibed the Lutheran doctrine, or at least feigns to profess it’.⁹ The confederates badly needed arms and funding and this breathtaking misinformation may have been supplied in an effort to convince the papal authorities to intervene in Irish affairs. Rinuccini soon discovered the truth of the matter after his arrival in Ireland. 'Nor do I find,’ he wrote in exasperation, 'that the hope of his conversion entertained at Rome and mentioned in my instructions has any foundation, as the dogmas implanted by the Archbishop of Canterbury are firmly implanted in his mind.’¹⁰ The nuncio’s rapid disillusion on the subject of Ormond’s religion was the first of many disappointments he experienced over the next three years.

In fact, the appointment of Rinuccini had as much to do with the Vatican’s diplomatic strategy in Europe as it had with Ireland. The election of Innocent X with Spanish support after a particularly bitter factional struggle represented a serious rebuff for France. Rinuccini’s mission to Ireland, travelling on route through France, served the dual purpose of demonstrating that the new pope, ‘took seriously his responsibilities as supreme pastor of the catholic church’, and allowed Innocent X to restore the ‘diplomatic interface’ disrupted by French hostility to his election. In fact, Rinuccini was not the first choice as envoy. Initially, Luigi Omedei, Chierico di Camera, received the commission but the French and catholic English objected on the grounds of his Spanish nationality. The Vatican felt that Rinuccini, a native of Tuscany, would be a more acceptable candidate.¹¹ Rinuccini’s sojourn at Paris had the added advantage of allowing the pope to introduce one of his own ministers at the French court.¹²

European Diplomacy

The politics of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and the mission of Cardinal Fabio Chigi (later pope Alexander VII) as nuncio to the peace conference at Münster also ‘formed an indispensable aspect of the background to Rinuccini’s nunciature’.¹³ This conflict divided mid-seventeenth century Europe in a continent-wide struggle motivated by a complex mix of religious disputes, dynastic rivalries, the politics of the Holy Roman Empire, regional civil wars and popular rebellions. English Protestants watched with alarm as the catholic Habsburgs went on the offensive in central Europe, and many saw Ireland as a potential weak point in their defences. The English administration’s brutal response to the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641, including a refusal to differentiate between catholic rebels and the wider catholic population, did not augur well for a negotiated settlement. Indeed, in a letter to the earl of Clanricarde of February 1642, one well-informed observer gloomily predicted that the Dublin administration’s anti-catholic policy 'should it take hold with the King will render this country a second Germany’.¹⁴ Meanwhile, at the peace talks in Münster, Cardinal Chigi demanded serious religious concessions, and Rinuccini adopted an equally hard-line stance in Ireland, seeking to fulfil the political objectives of Counter-reformation strategy by regaining territory conquered by Protestants.¹⁵

Innocent X’s instructions to Rinuccini unambiguously set out the priorities of his mission. He was ‘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 – thus to gain over souls innumerable to the glories of Paradise’.¹⁶ An accompanying Memorandum advised him at the very least to secure the following conditions in a treaty with Charles I:

1. ‘The revocation of all penal laws against the Catholics.
2. The abolition of the prescribed oath of supremacy.
3. That Catholics be declared capable of holding governments, offices, dignities, and all honourable situations in the kingdom and Parliament not less than the other subjects of His Majesty.
4. That no treaty shall be concluded between His Majesty and his rebellious Parliament, until they ratify these articles.
5. That in order to secure these conditions, all the fortresses in Ireland be put into the hands of English and Irish Catholics, because without some such pledge, their Majesties’ promises cannot be depended upon.
6. Lastly. In case His Holiness should vouchsafe to assist the Queen with a considerable sum of money, it will be more safe that the pontifical ministers in Ireland and France shall have the charge of disbursing it, and that it shall not be consigned to the royal ministers, because a great part of it would be applied to the benefit of private persons, and the King be but ill served’.¹⁷

By the time of Rinuccini’s arrival at Kenmare in October 1645 the situation had altered dramatically since the confederate’s initial request for a nuncio in 1643.¹⁸ Following the outbreak of the English civil war between king and parliament in August 1642 at least four armed factions contended for control of Ireland. Confederate armies held much of the kingdom. However, an enclave around Dublin, the colonial capital, was garrisoned by royalist troops under the marquis of Ormond. The confederates disputed control of Ulster with Scottish covenanters, allies of the English parliament, who not only defended their own territories but also threatened north Leinster and Connacht. Murrough O’Brien, Lord Inchiquin, a native Irish Protestant, held Cork and its hinterland on behalf of the English parliament. From early 1643 onwards the conflict settled into a pattern of small-scale sieges, skirmishes and desultory campaigns, with no one side gaining the upper hand. For both Charles I and the English parliament Ireland remained a low priority. Under Ormond’s guidance, and at the king’s direction, the royalists sought terms with Irish Catholics to release troops to support the king in his English campaigns. The subsequent negotiations exposed serious fault lines in the confederate association.¹⁹

In September 1643 the confederates concluded a cessation with the marquis of Ormond, and actively pursued a peace treaty. A more militant faction, consisting mainly of returned exiles supported by the clergy, harboured grave misgivings over the policy of negotiation. Indeed, confederate politics during the period of the nunciature seemed to involve one party intent on fighting a war and the other negotiating to end it.²⁰ According to Rinuccini, the peace party, driven by self-interest and doubtful of a successful military outcome, favoured a settlement on minimal terms, while the clerical party, suspicious of both the king and his lord lieutenant, advocated a full-scale prosecution of the war.²¹ Rinuccini believed that this fault line reflected the ethnic divisions between the Old English and the native Irish, and the Commentarius supports the argument that his arrival acted as a catalyst, with the clerical party, and by default the Ulster Irish, becoming closely identified with the nuncio’s policies.²²

Although the confederate leadership initially petitioned the Vatican for a nuncio, in part to increase their chances of attracting financial support from the European powers, by 1645 their priorities had shifted to making peace with the king. Rinuccini had been appointed without the knowledge of the supreme council and many confederates were acutely aware that the arrival of a papal nuncio at this juncture could hardly assist them in negotiating with a protestant monarch and his representatives in Ireland.²³ For his part, the nuncio believed that ‘the sole aim’ of the supreme council was ‘to please the Marquis [of Ormond] and invest the property of the Catholics in him, so as to entitle them to rewards and favours hereafter as they are mostly relations, friends, clients or dependants of his House’.²⁴ The peace party proved willing to accept much less than Rinuccini’s Instructions obliged him to achieve. Rinuccini’s aggressive continental Counter-reformation agenda now threatened to destroy confederate unity.

Although Rinuccini emphasised the post-Tridentine priorities of his pastoral as opposed to his political mission, the realities of Ireland’s complex situation meant that both were inextricably linked.²⁵ Most modern historians agree that fulfilling all or part of these instructions was ‘an almost impossible task’, and that Ireland presented him with unique set of problems.²⁶ Rinuccini noted that the necessity of compromise with the protestant administration had accustomed the hierarchy and clergy to accept the secret practice of their religion and ‘have thus come to content themselves with a Mass in their cabins…and quietly accommodate themselves to the misery of the times’.²⁷ The over-dependence of the clergy on support from wealthy relations brought them to the startling conclusion that secular Catholics could retain church lands acquired as a result of the Reformation.²⁸ He soon discovered that these distinctly un-Tridentine attitudes to religious practice manifested themselves in the political sphere.

The harsh realities of the situation immediately became apparent to the nuncio on his arrival at Kilkenny. The ordinary people, assembled gentry and nobility received him into the city with all the pomp and ceremony due the dignity of his office, but he also noted the breach of protocol by Viscount Mountgarret, president of the supreme council, who ‘rose as I approached but received me without moving at all from his place’.²⁹ Mountgarret, the marquis of Ormond’s great-uncle and de facto leader of the Butler family in the latter’s absence at Dublin, clearly signalled by his action the separation of civil and ecclesiastical power. Although historians have recently questioned just how much influence Mountgarret wielded at Kilkenny, according to the Commentarius, Rinuccini credited him with leading the opposition to his mission.³⁰ The nuncio accused a number of individuals, Patrick Darcy, Donough MacCarthy, viscount Muskerry, James Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, Richard Bellings, Gerrott Fennell, Sir Robert Talbot, Geoffrey Browne and Richard Martin of colluding with the marquis in treasonable plots. Contemporary sources sympathetic to the nuncio and the Ulster Irish collectively castigated these men as Ormond’s ‘mercuries’ (intelligence agents).³¹ But, this catalogue of alleged conspirators also reads as a list of the social elite in the Old English community. These men had ties with the marquis of Ormond through a long history of association with the Butler family and by a tradition of loyalty to the English crown, as well as common financial and economic interests.

Despite Rinuccini’s misgivings, the authors of the Commentarius, proved more circumspect in their analysis of the situation. Ormond's faction, they believed, was 'led by Muskerry assisted by the Butlers and many private gentlemen of Leinster principally dependent on the house of Butler, and who may be called clients rather than factionists.’³² Ormond exploited his hereditary influence among the Old English to full advantage but he did not need to create his 'party' as it already existed in many senses. Religious differences notwithstanding, as the confederation was created in the months from March 1642 an 'Ormondist' party naturally crystallised within it.³³ Rinuccini’s predecessor, the papal agent Scarampi, initially opposed this group. Scarampi’s doubts about their commitment to prosecuting the war anticipated the criticisms of his more trenchant colleague in the course of the nunciature.³⁴

From 1645 until 1649 Rinuccini emerged as a key player in the politics of the three Stuart kingdoms, Ireland, Scotland and England. The British context of the nunciature was the collapse of the royalist cause in all three kingdoms following the decisive defeat of the king’s forces in England at Naseby in June 1645. Ten months later, in April 1646, Charles I surrendered to the Scottish covenanters and thereafter embarked on a series of increasingly desperate attempts to cobble together support to renew the war. Through his intermediary, the marquis of Ormond, and with support of the major continental powers, the king hoped to use an army of Irish Catholics to rescue his cause in the other two kingdoms.³⁵ This created serious problems for Rinuccini as divisions amongst the confederates often reflected Franco-Spanish rivalry in Europe. The Gaelic Irish and clerical party traditionally looked to Spain while the ‘peace party’ sided with France. Indeed, one of the most important contributions of the Commentarius is that it elucidates the influence of the continental powers in Irish affairs and illustrates how their rivalries had a profound impact on the course of the war.³⁶ Both powers viewed Ireland essentially as a recruiting ground and the Spanish planned to transport the bulk of the confederate forces in Munster and Leinster into foreign service in late 1647-early 1648. The French position mirrored that of the English and Irish catholic royalists: victory for Charles I over his enemies in all three kingdoms would facilitate an Irish settlement, as well as protecting Irish catholic landed and religious interests. Rinuccini sought in vain to tread a neutral path between the two continental powers. According to Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, however, ‘the French became convinced that Rinuccini was personally pro-Spanish and that his policy in Ireland reflected both his own and his master’s inclinations in its pro-Spanish orientation’.³⁷

Rinuccini and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

Historians are still divided on the success or failure of Rinuccini’s mission, though from the outset he undoubtedly faced a daunting challenge. Some months before his arrival in Ireland the king sent the devoutly catholic earl of Glamorgan to negotiate a secret deal with the confederates which granted toleration of Catholicism. On this basis the confederates undertook to relieve the beleaguered royalist garrison at the vital port of Chester. Scarampi, however, unhappy at the secret nature of the settlement, urged the confederates to await the nuncio’s arrival before making any decision.³⁸ Rinuccini’s insistence that the religious articles must be demonstrably fulfilled fatally undermined any value the treaty might possibly have had for the king’s cause.³⁹ When the English parliament discovered details of Glamorgan’s dealings and published them, Charles I, conscious of English hostility towards Irish Catholics, publicly denied any knowledge of the matter. To distance himself and the king from any part in these proceedings, Ormond arrested Glamorgan on a charge of treason. Rinuccini countered by producing evidence of a proposed agreement between the king and Innocent X, hammered out in parallel negotiations by queen Henrietta Maria and a leading English Catholic, Sir Kenelm Digby. The nuncio triumphantly pointed out to the confederate assembly that the terms of this treaty were much favourable than those offered by Glamorgan.⁴⁰ These included the free and public exercise of the catholic religion; possession of church property; restoration of the hierarchy; the annulment of all penal laws and a free Irish parliament to enact these laws.⁴¹ Rinuccini clearly believed that a treaty with either Glamorgan or Ormond could not fully satisfy confederate religious or political demands.⁴² Similarly, the nuncio was resolved to prevent any arrangement that would have, in his view, secured the victory of a self-interested faction over the spiritual well being of the Irish as a nation.

The nuncio’s financial independence strengthened his hand. He brought as much as £10,000 with him in cash, and used much of this to rearm and re-supply Owen Roe O’Neill’s Ulster army. O’Neill effectively neutered the Scottish covenanters as a fighting force with his crushing victory at Benburb in county Tyrone in June 1646. Emboldened by this and other confederate successes at Roscommon and Bunratty, the nuncio felt strong enough to challenge the supreme council who announced a peace treaty with the marquis of Ormond in August 1646. Much to Rinuccini’s disgust, this settlement simply shelved the contentious religious issues until after the end of the war. Rinuccini declared the treaty contrary to the confederate oath of association and in August he convened a legatine synod, which excommunicated all the supporters of the supreme council. The nuncio’s actions, supported by Owen Roe O’Neill, constituted an effective coup d’état and for the next six months the clerical faction controlled the confederate association.⁴³ On his return to Kilkenny, Rinuccini appointed a new supreme council under his own presidency, which immediately ordered a military assault on Dublin. The onset of winter, however, and internal rivalries among the leading confederate commanders fatally undermined this strategy. This setback strengthened the hand of those advocating a compromise with the royalists, and a moderate faction, led by Sir Nicholas Plunkett, chairman of the General Assembly, attempted to renew negotiations with Ormond. Despairing of any conclusive outcome from the talks, and concerned for his personal position, the marquis surrendered Dublin to the English parliament in June 1647 and fled into exile.

The failure of the confederate military campaigns and their inability to coordinate the actions of their provincial armies meant that they now faced war on at least two fronts. The parliamentarian garrison at Dublin under Colonel Michael Jones took the offensive and destroyed the confederate Leinster army under Thomas Preston at Dungan’s Hill in August. At the same time, Lord Inchiquin ravaged Munster, and he decisively defeated the confederates at Knocknanuss in November. A resurgent peace faction, supported by some of those who had previously been staunch adherents of Rinuccini now seized the initiative. Inchiquin’s dramatic switch of allegiance to the royalist camp in April 1648 provided the opportunity to conclude a ceasefire in the southern province. The peace party argued that ‘as it was utterly impossible for the Confederation to carry on two wars, one in Munster, and one with Dublin, it was necessary to make a truce with one of their enemies, and that Inchiquin having declared for the King and a free Parliament, was the most to be relied on’.⁴⁴

The nuncio rightly suspected a wider plot involving Ormond and the exiled royal court in Paris. The Supreme Council sent Donough MacCarthy, viscount Muskerry and Geoffrey Browne to negotiate directly with Queen Henrietta Maria, and they spent much of the time undermining Rinuccini’s nunciature at the French court.⁴⁵ In Ireland, two leading confederate generals, Viscount Taaffe and Thomas Preston, agreed to call a cessation on their own authority, despite their anxiety that the rank and file would baulk at the threat of excommunication. Events now moved quickly, and in May the Supreme Council agreed a six months cessation with Inchiquin. Fearing for his own safety, Rinuccini departed Kilkenny for the security of O’Neill’s camp at Maryborough in county Laois. On 27 May 1648,⁴⁶ with the support of most of the episcopate, Rinuccini excommunicated all who supported this, ‘unjust and pernicious cessation’, and placed an interdict against the towns, which recognised it.⁴⁷ The supreme council retaliated by appealing to the Pope and sent John Rowe, provincial of the Discalced Carmelites, to plead their case.⁴⁸ In response Rinuccini dispatched Richard O’Ferrall (co-author of the Commentarius) and these competing missions ignited a vituperative intellectual conflict amongst the Irish at home and abroad, which raged long after Rinuccini’s death in 1653 and ultimately led to the compilation of the Commentarius.

That events had now moved beyond his control is evident in Rinuccini’s despairing correspondence to his superiors in Rome: ‘Hell is working with all its powers – some Bishops and many regulars have declared against me chiefly amongst the Jesuits’.⁴⁹ The nuncio wondered how matters had come to such a pass that ‘the Council have endeavoured to rob me of my linen, money, papers, and even my authority.’⁵⁰ By July he had already decided to ‘leave the country with the consciousness of having done all in my power to save the kingdom from the heretics’.⁵¹ His last hopes rested on the Ulster army which surrounded Kilkenny in August, but he wrote Cardinal Pancirolo that ‘If God in His hidden wisdom does not strengthen O’Neill and enable him to root out his enemies, we are irremediably [sic] lost’.⁵² In fact O’Neill was forced to withdraw from Kilkenny after only a week due to a lack of supplies and in September the general assembly declared the Ulster general a traitor.⁵³

Meanwhile, events in Britain bolstered the negotiating position of both the royalists and the peace party. The Scottish covenanters disavowed their alliance with parliament, and negotiated terms with the king instead. A Scottish army invaded England in the summer of 1648, initiating what has become known as the second civil war. Oliver Cromwell decisively defeated this force at Preston in August and royalist revival in England quickly collapsed. A victorious parliament, purged of its more moderate members, took the momentous decision to put the king, ‘that man of blood’, on trial. It became clear to many that only a broad coalition of forces could rescue the military and political fortunes of both the royalists and confederates.

In November, Nicholas French, the bishop of Ferns, and Sir Nicholas Plunkett, sent to Rome in February 1648 to seek further supply, returned empty-handed. They now determined that negotiation with Ormond provided the only means of securing favourable terms for Catholicism. Their unsuccessful mission, and defection to the peace party, neutralised the nuncio’s remaining influence. The declaration of the Second Ormond Peace on 17 January 1649 convinced the nuncio that his mission was at an end and he left Galway for France on 23 February 1649, three weeks after the execution of King Charles I. He laid the blame for the failure of his mission squarely on the Old English who, he said, rushed like a river towards an accommodation with the heretic king and his representatives in Ireland. Unquestionably, however, papal parsimony undermined his financial independence, and forced him to rely more than he considered prudent on the muscle of the Ulster Irish. His political options dissolved when the flow of subsidies from Rome all but dried up, as it is clear that the willingness of the confederates of all shades of opinion to follow his advice waxed and waned in proportion to his ability to supply their treasury.⁵⁴

The Debate in Europe

Rinuccini returned to the continent amidst a storm of controversy arising from the censures he had imposed in May 1648. The Franciscan Peter Walsh fired the opening salvo with his Queries concerning the lawfulness of the present cessation, and of the censures against all confederates adhering to it, written as a supporting argument for John Rowe’s mission to Rome on behalf of the Supreme Council.⁵⁵ Following an acrimonious debate in the Vatican between O’Ferrall and Rowe over the legality of nuncio’s actions, Innocent X eventually ruled in favour of Rinuccini.⁵⁶ That decision may well have been the end of the story, as any further appeal now seemed pointless. Moreover, in Ireland Oliver Cromwell’s campaign of conquest and Ormond’s dismal performance against him, appeared to vindicate the nuncio and undermined the arguments of his opponents. A synod of leading catholic clergy, including many of the bishops who had opposed Rinuccini rejected the Ormond Peace in August 1650, and prepared to excommunicate its adherents.⁵⁷ In Paris, however, a pamphlet published by a partisan of the nuncio, Paul King OFM, attacking those who had favoured the Ormond peace relit the controversy over the censures.⁵⁸ John Callaghan’s answer to these charges, Vindiciarum catholicorum Hiberniae, became renowned as the ‘by far the most comprehensive indictment of the nuncio’s policy to be produced in the 1650s’, revealing, the Commentarius alleges, ‘his malign intention towards the Nuncio and all his party, and the seething passion of his openly vengeful soul’.⁵⁹ The work itself was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum in June 1654, which mistakenly identified the author as Richard Bellings, former secretary of the supreme council.⁶⁰ Richard O’Ferrall was asked to compile the Commentarius as a direct result of the popularity of the Vindiciarum and by way of full refutation. On 5 December 1650 the nuncio summoned him to Fermo to assist him in writing a history of Irish affairs.⁶¹ After only an initial consultation with O’Ferrall in 1651, however, Rinuccini’s failing health and subsequent death on 13 December 1653 inevitably postponed the project.⁶²

The controversy continued to fester at Rome but hopes of overturning the nuncio’s censures received a further, and apparently final, blow in August 1655, when the new pope, Alexander VII, (Fabio Chigi) ruled that all those under interdict must seek personal absolution.⁶³ O’Ferrall’s publication of this document, along with a number of triumphal comments, unleashed a storm of criticism among the Irish exiles who sent Father Oliver Walsh to appeal the decree at Rome. O’Ferrall counterattacked in March 1658 with Ad Sacram Congregaitionem de Propaganda Fide. Modus et authores eversionis Catholicae religionis et regni Iberniae et nonnulla remedia and conservandum ibi utriusque reliquas. Although the text runs to only six pages it represented the most sustained attack to date on Rinuccini’s enemies,⁶⁴ and attracted the wrath of a whole gamut of critics from king Charles II to Oliver Plunkett.⁶⁵ The resulting furore, and diplomatic embarrassment, lost O’Ferrall much of the support he enjoyed at the Vatican and resulted in his banishment from Rome. Nicholas French, bishop of Ferns, Peter Walsh and the archdeacon of Tuam, John Lynch, all penned vigorous replies, the latter under a title which is unambiguous in its purpose even for those without Latin.⁶⁶ Lynch, who had taught classics at Galway, fled to France in 1652 taking up residence at St Malo. The Commentarius associates him with those who had opposed the nuncio.⁶⁷ His views on the calamity that had befallen Ireland are in stark contrast to those of Rinuccini and O’Ferrall. Lynch believed the unattainable demands of the nuncio and the native Irish, rather than the Old English, caused the downfall of the confederacy.⁶⁸

The Compilation of the Commentarius

Father O’Ferrall finally obtained permission in June 1659 to move to Florence to commence the monumental task of researching and writing the Commentarius. O’Ferrall’s own infirmity required him to seek assistance and in September 1661 he was joined by Father Robert O’Connell from the Capuchin house at Charleville. The work was compiled in Florence between 1661-1666.⁶⁹

The title on the first page of the MS is as follows:

De haeresis Anglicanae in Iberniam intrusione et progressu, et de bello Catholico ad annum 1641 caepto, exindeque per aliquot annos gesto Commentarius. (A commentary on the intrusion of the English heresy into Ireland and its progress, and on the Catholic war which began in the year 1641, and was waged for some years following).

While working on the project both clerics had full access to Rinuccini’s papers, and this is one of the great strengths of the Commentarius.⁷⁰ Furthermore, as Ó hAnnracháin has pointed out, Rinuccini was ‘an almost messianic bureaucrat’, and strict orders had been issued to ensure the safe arrival of despatches. It is clear that that as O’Ferrall’s health deteriorated O’Connell took a more active role in the work. He completed the text after O’Ferrall’s death in August 1663, and the greater part of the manuscript is in his hand. Evidence of O’Connell’s key role is reinforced by Dr Gráinne McLaughlin’s discovery, as part of the early research on this project, of O’Connell’s Historia Missionis Hiberniae Fratrum Minorum Capucinorum. Evidence from the Historia, in particular its citation without reference in the Commentarius, proved crucial in establishing O’Connell’s authorship. The text covers a period from 1170 to the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in 1641 and up to and beyond the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. The bulk of the text, however, deals with Rinuccini’s time in Ireland. Although it was compiled at the nuncio’s request the Commentarius is by no means an uncritical account of the nunciature or his apologia and O’Connell’s influence was crucial in this regard. The completed work provided historians with, ‘what is unquestionably the most comprehensive history of the Confederation of Kilkenny’.⁷³

W.P. Kelly

University of Ulster