Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

BOYLE. 135 thè overpowering numbers of the insurgents. When the cessation of arms was concluded in 1648, Lord Broghill went over to England, where he represented the treachery of the rebels in so strong a light to his majesty, as to con- vince him that they did not mean to adhere to the terms which had been agreed on. In consequence of this, his majesty dispatched to Lord Inehiquin, then president of Munster, a commission to prosecute the rebels, and Lord Broghill employed all his interest to assist him in the exercise of his arduous task. Soon after this, the govern- ment of Ireland was ceded by the king to the commis- sioners appointed by the parliament, but so much did Lord Broghill abhor the cruelties and excesses which had been committed by the rebels, that he still retained his com- mission, and did not relax from his strenuous endeavours to re-establish the tranquillity of his country at On the execution of Charles I. Lord Broghill wad so mueh shocked at thát melancholy oecurrence, that he immediately quitted thè service of the parliament, and abandoning his estates in Ireland, embarked for England. He now retired to his seat at Marston, in Somersetshire where he lived privately till 1649; but this inactive life soon wearied him. He regarded it as a dereliction of his duty to the unfortunate family of the Stuarts, and unfit for a man of his quality. The principles of loyalty in which he had been educated stimulated him to active éx- ertions, and he resolved upon passing over to the continent to procure a commission from Charles II. to levy forces for his service in Ireland. For this purpose, he raised a considerable sum of money upon his estates, and applied to the Earl of Warwick, whio was then in great eredit with the prevailing party, requesting him to procare for hima free pass to go over to the Spa, the waters of that place ng been recommended to him as essential to the recoa very and preservation of his health. He also commu- nicated his design to several persons whon he conceived equally dévoted with himself to the cause of their exiled