classes of Irish landowners were particularly entitled to redress. The first were those who had never resisted the authority of Charles I. or his son, but who had been expelled from Ireland or deprived of all or some of their property on account of their noted loyalty, or because, being Catholics, they had failed to show "Constant Good Affection" to the parliament.
In the first sub-division were included great noblemen such as Ormond and Clanrickard; in the second sub-division were the townsmen of Dublin, Drogheda (if any of these survived), Cork, Kinsale and Youghal, infants (such as the Brownes and Mac Carthys of Killarney) and many isolated landowners in all parts of the country.
Then there were those who, although they had joined in the rising of 1641, or in the subsequent Confederation of Kilkenny, had yet singularly deserved of the King by their efforts to bring about a reconciliation between him and his Catholic subjects, or by the zeal with which they had fought under his banners against the usurper. Men such as Lord Muskerry and the Marquis of Antrim may be taken as examples of the former; the citizens of Limerick, Wexford and Galway as examples of the latter.[1]
And to all of these—the vast majority of the nation—Charles was bound by two solemn treaties, by which first his father, and then he himself had fully pardoned those who had taken part in the
- ↑ The townsmen of Wexford had fought valiantly against Cromwell; those of Limerick had rejected an offer of very favourable terms from Cromwell himself, and had stood a siege from June to October, 1651. Galway was the last town in his dominions to hold out for Charles and only surrendered After a siege of nine months.
