Talk:Ordinance of no quarter to the Irish

Googling for "Ordinance of No Quarter" returns two sources

• Pádraig Lenihan, "Confederate Catholics at War, 1641-49" Page 211
• Thomas Bartlett, Keith Jeffery. "A Military History of Ireland" page 305

Lenihan makes a mistake calling the English Parliament British (Scotland and England were separate at the time) but Lenihan also makes it clear that this Ordinance only applied to Irishmen in England not in Irishmen in Ireland (note that the Irish did not have to be papist, Irish Royalist protestants who fought in Englandwould probably have fallen foul of this as well).

Bartlett and Jeffery make much the same point that it was a Parliamentary response to Charles I receiving forces from Ireland to fight his war in England. 10,00 troops from the Kilkenny Confederacy to England (and a further 2,000 to Scotland to aid Montrose). So to place the "Ordinance of no quarter to the Irish". So as the sentence containing the Ordinance was very misleading, I have removed it. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 21:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, my mistake re the ordinance of no quarter. However you're mistaken re the Confederates sending troops to England. They talked and talked about it but never actually did it. The expedition to aid Montrose was their only intervention in 'Britain' (you know what I mean) in the civil wars. Jdorney (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Some Irishmen were in England -- I don't know how many but Thomas Bartlett, Keith Jeffery state 10,000 in the reference given above. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have that book to hand, though I have read it, but I think that if you read carefully you'll find that the 'Irish' troops in England were actually returned Royalists who had been sent to Ireland in 1641-42. The Parliament made great play out of this in its propaganda, but as far as I'm aware, there were actually very few Irish soldiers and cetainly no Confederate regiments serving in the English Civil War. After the battle of Marston Moor or Naesby (I forget which), some Parliamentarians massacred some people whom they belived to be Irish Catholics but who were in fact Welsh. The Confederates tortuosly negoitated with Ormonde over the terms under which they would send troops to England, but by the time they finally agreed to do so, in 1646, it was too late. The Supreme Council of the Confederacy got ousted by its General Assembly over this very point. Jdorney (talk) 15:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is the link to page 305 It says:

There were obvious difficulties about the employment of Irish Catholic soldiers on mainland Britain; 10,000 troops sent by the Kilkenny Confederacy to reinforce the royalists in England and Wales in 1643-4 excited intense antagonism, while undoubtedly contributing in a major way to the prolongation of Charles I's resistance to 1646.⁴³

Don't think it could be much clearer!--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I know we're not supposed to question printed sources on wp but I'm completely certain that that is a mistake. I'll have a look at O Siochru and Lenihan for some references. Jdorney (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It would not surprise me that it was not correct, as there are few reported massacres of Catholic Irish soldiers in England and if there had been 10,000 running around one would have expected some serious fighting, and apart from a few hundred massacred after one of the sieges (where the English garrison were allowed to leave with military honours) -- can't remember which one -- I can not recall reading about any other incidents. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Philip, Here are the ref's you were looking for, from John Kenyon, Jane Ohlmeyer, The Civil Wars, pp 87-88 After the ceasefire of 1643,

• 'Charles made us of these resources for his own war effort. Ormonde shipped considerable numbers of largely Protestant troops to Wales. In addition Antrim asked the [Confederate] Supreme Council to provide Charles with a furthr 10,000 men for England, "to resist the Scotch invasion" and at least 2,000 armed men who were to join the Scottish royalists under the marquis of Montrose, as well as with arms for Prince Rupert's forces in England. The council agreed to raise troops for Scotalnd...While the confederates promised to provide the arms and munitions requested for Prince Rupert, they remained reluctant to ship ten Catholic regiments to England at a time when troops were desperately needed at home and refused to commit themselves until they had heard how negotiations between their commissioners and the King (over the redress of their religious, tenurial and political grievances) were progressing at Oxford...Charles refused to make any significant concessions to any of their demands, especially those concerning religion and the constitutional position of the Irish Parliament and the delegation returne to Kilkenny. Hardly surprisingly, further confederate aid for the royalist war effort did not materialise.'

Padraig Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War, p.76

• 'In November 1643, Ormonde sent about 2,000 men to Bristol from Munster and five regiments from Dublin () to Chester. The main body of "Irish" (the troops from Leinster were in fact mostly Welsh and Cheshire men...) were grouped in five regiments and used to clear the parliamentarians from north Wales and Nantwich... Ormonde may subsequently have sent two infrantry regiments and four cavalry troops, or at most about 2,000 men.'

• p.78; 'Antrim... asked the Supreme Council to back his proposed expeditionary force of 2,000 men for Scotland and another 10,000 for England. The councilmen agreed to Antrim's Scottish expedition but refused to commit themselves to supplying 10,000 men until they saw how negotiations between their commissioners and the king were proceeding at Oxford'.

• p.85 The Earl of Glamorgan signed a secret treaty with the confederates on the King's behalf in 1645 under which a confederate force would be sent to Chester.

• 'On 22 January 1646, the King publicly repudiated the treaty. Two months were to elapse before this news reached the Supreme Council and in the meantime preparations went ahead, to the extent that 6,000 troops were actually assembled in readiness to embark for Chester in March 1646. Then, news arrived almost simultaneously of the fall of Chester and the King's repudiation of the treaty. Even without hte benefit of hindsight, the expeditionary strategy was dead'.

So there were two periods when the confederates promised to send troops to England, but they never actually got there. What did reach Charles were Ormonde's royalist units whom the ceasefire allowed to be sent back to England. regards, Jdorney (talk) 21:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)