¹ Ohlmeyer, Jane H., Civil war and restoration in the three Stuart kingdoms. The career of Randal MacDonnell, marquis of Antrim, 1609–1683 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 96–9Google Scholar; Ohlmeyer, Jane H., ‘Communications: the “Antrim Plot” of 1641 – a myth?’ in The Historical Journal, XXV (1992), 905–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Dr Ohlmeyer has seen and commented on an earlier draft of this response, and, although I have not changed my opinion, I thank her for her comments, which have led to some revisions in my text.

² The most commonly used copy of these statements appears in Hill, G., An historical account of the MacDonnells of Antrim (Belfast, 1873), pp. 448–51Google Scholar. This copy indicates that the statements were dictated and Antrim, after making two alterations in the text, signed them as being an accurate record of what he had said. At the Restoration Antrim was asked to answer for his assertions, but the original of the document with his signature in holograph was not, so far as we know, produced by the earl's accusers and has not subsequently been found although Ohlmeyer has discovered several copies without the holograph not hitherto known. As will be shown, the point is not without some significance, and it is just possible that Antrim never made the statements, but, like Ohlmeyer, I believe that he did, and in this response assume that the original statements with his signature did at one time exist.

³ Gardiner, S. R., History of England from the accession of James I to the outbreak of the civil war, 1603–42 (10 vols., London, 1899), X, 7–8, 49–51Google Scholar; Clarke, Aidan, The Old English in Ireland 1625–42 (London, 1966), p. 159Google Scholar; Clarke, Aidan, ‘The genesis of the Ulster Rising’ in Peter, Roebuck (ed.), Plantation to partition. Essays in Ulster history in honour of J. L. McCraken (Belfast, 1981), pp. 39–40Google Scholar; Casway, Jerrold I., Owen Roe O'Neill and the struggle for catholic Ireland (Philadelphia, 1984), p. 50Google Scholar; Hibbard, Caroline, Charles I and the popish plot (Chapel Hill, 1983), p. 211Google Scholar; Beckett, J. C., The cavalier duke. A life of James Butler – 1st duke of Ormond (Belfast, 1990), pp. 18–19Google Scholar; Russell, Conrad, ‘The British background to the Irish rebellion of 1641’ in Historical Research, LXI (1988), 179.Google Scholar

⁴ Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, pp. 909–10.Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid. pp. 914–15; examination of Antrim, 23 July 1661, Cal[endar of] S[tate] P[apers relating to] Ire[land], 1660–62, pp. 384–5.

⁶ Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, p. 915 n. 51.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid. p. 912.

⁸ Ibid. pp. 911–12.

⁹ Beckett, Ormond, pp. 18–19.

¹⁰ Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, p. 916 n. 56.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid. pp. 915–16.

¹² Ibid. p. 917.

¹³ The surrounding circumstances to which Ohlmeyer points include the hiatus in the Antrim–Hamilton correspondence between April 1640 and June 1641 (ibid. p. 912), the confession under torture by Colonel Read that he knew of a plot ‘since the disbanding [of] our Irish army’ (ibid. p. 913), and the view that ‘a significant number’ of disbanded soldiers ‘converged on Dublin’ (ibid. p. 918). None of this is convincing. Read did not mention either Antrim or the king; the soldiers from the disbanded army tended to move towards ports – some to Kinsale, some to Galway and some to Dublin – as it was from these places that they were supposed to be shipped to foreign service. At the time that the rebellion broke out, some of these men were on board a ship in Dublin harbour, but in a state of near starvation as they had not been allowed to sail nor land on shore and had run out of supplies (T[rinity] C[ollege] D[ublin] MSS 809, fo. 129). For the evidence on Kinsale and Galway, see notes 34 and 48 below.

¹⁴ Hill, MacDonnells, p. 449.

¹⁵ Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, p. 906.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid. p. 909, n. 18; Gardiner, History, X, 7; Casway, , Owen Roe O”’Neill, p. 50Google Scholar; Beckett, Ormond, p. 18; Clarke, ‘Genesis’, p. 159; Hibbard, , Popish plot, p. 211.Google Scholar

¹⁷ King to Ormond, 8 May 1641, Bodl[eian], Carte MSS 1, fo. 281.

¹⁸ Order oflords justices, 17 May 1641, P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], 31/1/1, p. 247.

¹⁹ Ormond to [Vane], 9 June 1641, P.R.O., S[tate] P[apers] 63/259, fo. 163.

²⁰ Hill, MacDonnells, p. 450.

²¹ King to Ormond, 13 May 1641, Bodl., Carte MSS 1, fos. 391, 393, 395, 397, 399, 401, 403.

²² Bodl., Carte MSS 1, fo. 403V; lord justices to [Vane], 24 May 1641, P.R.O., S.P. 63/259, fo. 139; same to same, 30 June 1641, ibid. fo. 198; Cat. S.P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 307.

²³ King to Ormond, 19 June 1641, B[ritish] L[ibrary], Add[itional] MSS 28938, fo. 120.

²⁴ King to Ormond, 13 May 1641, endorsed ‘Rec. 9 July Connell (sic) Porter’, Bodl., Carte MSS fo. 402V; Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, p. 918.Google Scholar

²⁵ Irish commons' committee in England to speaker of the Irish commons [Maurice Eustace], I7june, 25 June, 9 July, 1641, Duchy of Cornwall Office, Bound MSS T/M/3. Letters were sent by the committee to Ireland on 12 May, [9] June, 25 June and 8 and 9 July. Bourke did not sign the May letter or the ones dated [9] June and 9 July. Other members of the committee had similarly erratic records as signers of the letters. Thus we cannot attach too much importance to the absence of a signature and we certainly cannot assume that those who did not sign a particular letter were out of the country. We know that two other members of the committee, Geoffrey Brown and Simon Digby, did return to Ireland before May; Brown came back to England and signed the letters of [9] and 17 June, but not that of the twenty-fifth. Digby did not return because he was suffering from pains in the head (S. Digby to commons' committee in England, 7 May 1641, Armagh Public Library, G. I.II, no page). Similarly, Sir Donough MacCarthy signed none of the letters, but this was because his father, Viscount Muskerry, died in February 1641 (Cokayne, et al. eds. Complete peerage (13 vols., London, 1910–1940), IX, 440Google Scholar. This source mistakenly dates the death as 1640.) Sir Donough succeeded to the title and was no longer eligible to sit in the commons. He was not replaced. These details show the extent to which we can track the movements of members of the committee. It is highly unlikely that Bourke could have left London and gone to Ireland without some record of his departure or arrival surviving. I thank His Royal Highness the duke of Cornwall for permission to use his muniments and Conrad Russell for bringing these papers to my attention.

²⁶ Antrim to Hamilton, 19 July 1641, S[cottish] R[ecord] O[ffice], GD 406/1/1389.

²⁷ Hill, MacDmnells, p. 449. This could only have been the younger earl, formerly Sir Donough, who returned to Ireland on his father's death in February. The funeral of the dead earl, however, was held in May at Westminster, and it might be assumed that the son and heir returned to England to be present at this event. He would not, therefore, have been available to be Ormond's messenger in May.

²⁸ Hill, MacDonnells, pp. 449–50.

²⁹ Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, p. 912.Google Scholar

³⁰ Antrim to Hamilton, 19 July 1641, S.R.O., GD 406/1/1389.

³¹ Russell, , ‘British background’, p. 179.Google Scholar

³² We have seen that Porter arrived in Ireland on 9 July. The correspondence of Porter and the Spanish ambassador in England shows that Barry and the other colonels had arrived by the twentieth (Porter to de Cárdenas, [no date] July 1641; de Cárdenas to Don Ferdinand, 20 July 1641, Jennings, B., ed., Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders 1582–1700 (Dublin, 1964), pp. 394–50.Google Scholar

³³ Journal of the house of commons of the kingdom of Ireland (20 vols., Dublin, 1779–1800), I, 272–3, 276–7Google Scholar; Parsons to Vane, 3 Aug. 1641, P.R.O., S.P. 63/260, fo. 35V.

³⁴ P.R.O., S.P. 63/260, fo. 38; Cal. S.P. Ire, 1633–47, p. 330.

³⁵ Lady Barrymore to Cork, 18 Aug. 1641, Chatsworth, Lismore MSS 22, no. 53; lords justices to Vane, 24 Aug. 1641, P.R.O., S.P. 63/260, fos. 92, 98; Thomas Dillon to Vane, 27 Aug. 1641, ibid. fo. 107; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633–47, pp. 338, 340.

³⁶ Bond of Barry and Sir P. Percival to de Cárdenas, 8 Sept. 1641, B.L. Add. MSS 46925, fos. 137, 139; H.M.C., Egmont MSS, I, 141; Witnessed certification, 25 Nov. 1641 and acknowledged by de Cárdenas 27 Nov., B.L., Add. MSS 46925, fo. 139V; H.M.C., Egmont MSS, I, 141.

³⁷ Sir William St Leger to Percival, 8 Nov. 1641, H.M.C., Egmont MSS, I, 145; lords justices to Leicester, 26 Nov. 1641, H.M.C., Ormond MSS, new series, II, 27.

³⁸ Gilbert, J. T., ed., A contemporary history of affairs in Ireland, from 1641 to 1652 (3 vols., Dublin, 1879), I, pt. 2, 503Google Scholar. Maguire dated his departure from Dublin as taking place after the arrival of a Colonel Plunkett and before the arrival of two others. Plunkett arrived with Porter, therefore by 9 July, and the rest of the colonels had arrived by the twentieth (see note 30 above).

³⁹ Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, p. 908Google Scholar; Hill, MacDonnells, p. 450.

⁴⁰ Hill, MacDonnells, p. 450.

⁴¹ Gilbert, Contemporary history, I, pt. 2, 503. In an earlier statement (21 March 1642) Maguire related that he had been told by one of the other conspirators that ‘a great man was in the plot’ but he could not be named. Maguire also reported that a priest had told him ‘that those of the Pale were privy unto the plot (meaning the present rebellion)’ (ibid. p. 498). The Palesmen were also probably plotting at the time, and seem to have wanted to stop the army leaving Ireland, but there is no evidence that Charles was involved in this plotting. Maguire also related that Plunkett had initially declared that the Pale would join with them, but that some of the colonels later withdrew from Maguire's scheme because the ‘Pale would do nothing therein first’ (ibid. pp. 506–7).

⁴² Hill, MacDonnells, p. 450.

⁴³ B.L., Harl[eian] MSS 6424, fos. 87–88V; Joum[als of the house of] lords ([London], 1767 +), IV, 331, 340, 345.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ de Cárdenas to Don Ferdinand, 16 Aug. 1641, Jennings, , Wild Geese, p. 353.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ B.L., Harl. MSS 6424, fo. 89; B.L., Harl. MSS 164, fo. 25V; B.L., Harl. MSS 5047, fo. 71; Journ. lords, IV, 364.

⁴⁶ King to Nicholas, 19 Aug. 1641, Bray, W., ed., Diary and correspondence of John Evelyn (4 vols., London, 1879), IV, 73.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ohlmeyer, , ‘“Antrim plot”’, p. 918Google Scholar; Vane to Ormond, 20 Aug. 1641, Bodl., Carte MSS 1, fo. 436.

⁴⁸ Nicholas to king, 28 Aug. 1641, Bray, Diary of John Evelyn, IV, 80–1.

⁴⁹ Journal of the house of commons (London, 1803), II, 285Google Scholar; Calendar of Stale Papers, domestic, 1641–43, p. 154.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Bourke, U., The memoirs and letters of Ulick, marquis of Clanricarde (London, 1757), pp. 17, 30.Google Scholar