A True and Credible Relation, OF THE barbarous cruelty AND bloody MASSACRES OF THE ENGLISH PROTESTANTS That lived in the kingdom of Ireland, Anne Dom. 1641. In the province of Ulster, and other of the Provinces there, by the Irish Rebellious traitors.  
Written by a Gentleman, who was an eye witness, of most of the passages hereafter following, who was forced with his wife, to abandon, house, estate and Country, for fear of the rebels, and arrived in London, this 15. of January. 1642.  
LONDON, Printed by E. Griffin, 1642.   

A true and credible Relation of the Barbarous cruelty, and bloody Massacres of the English Protestants, that lived in the kingdom of Ireland, in Anno Domini, 1641. In the province of Ulster; and other of the Provinces there by the Irish Rebellious traitors.  
THeir cruel and Damnable design, was first to have surprised the Castle of Dublin upon the 23. day of October Anno predicto, upon a Saturday; the same night all the Popish houses were to be marked with a cross to be known from the Protestants houses, their intent being upon the Sunday following to have surprised all the protestants and to have stripped them naked, as they did many thousands of men, women and children in other parts of the kingdom of Ireland upon the same day, and also to have surprised all the English shipping, riding at Anchor at a harbour commonly called the Rings End, about a mile distant from the City of Dublin. But God that saw their bloody intent discovered their practice by one of their own faction suffering them to run on in their own wicked hope and cruel imagination, until the night before their practice should have been put in execution, for the same night the Lord Mack-Gueere an Irish man, and captain Mack-Mahowne also an Irish man (who confessed the whole plot) were apprehended, the one in Cookstreet within the City of Dublin, the other near Dublin in Saint Mary abbey in the suburbs of the same City, both which have been ever since imprisoned in the Castle of Dublin, and do still remain there: what man so blind as may not herein see the finger of God, and how their malicious hearts are bent to shed innocent blood, that notwithstanding they have so often failed in their wicked and bloody purposes and intents both private and public, which they have secretly attempted in darkness will take no warning, but still run on in their bloud-thirstines, to extirpate whole states, to suppress the truth, and to shed the blood of God's Saints, the Lord confound their devices▪  
It is too manifest that the Jesuits those firebrands of hell, and Popish priests were the plotters of this and other Treasons, which can at their pleasure absolve subjects of their obedience to their princes, and give power to murder▪ and depose Kings, neither could they work upon a more rebellious and forward Nation to do mischief.  
The Irish is well known to be a people both proud and envious, for the commonalty they are for the most part ignorant and illiterate, lazy and poor, and will rather beg then work, and therefore fit subjects for the Jesuits, to spur on upon such bloody Actions, for Ignorance is without mercy, for never was it heard or known, that ever Turk or infidel did ever use a Christian so unmercifully as they have used the English protestants, who have releived them, and kept them from starving,  
It is too well known (the more is the pity and to be lamented) that they have murdered, and starved to death of the English in the province of Ulster and other provinces where they are risen up in bellion, of men, women and Children above 20000  
Their manner is and hath been, cowardly and treacherously to surprise them upon great advantages, and without respect of persons▪ to rob them of all they have, but being not content therewith (but as insatiable of blood) hunting after their precious lives, stripped Ladies, and gentlewomen, Virgins and Babes, old and young, naked as ever they were borne, from their clothes, turning them into the open fields, (where having first destroyed the husbands and Parents, before their wives and children's faces) many hundreds have been found dead in ditches with cold for want of food and raiment, the Irish having no more compassion of their age or youth, then of dogs.  
As for the protestant Ministers, those they take (which have been many) they use them with such cruelty, as it would make any heart to melt into tears that doth but hear this relation; Their manner is first to hang them up, and then they cut off their heads, after they quarter them, than they dismember their secret parts, stopping their mouths therewith, a thing indeed for modesty sake, more fit to be omitted then related.  
Many of their wives, they have ravished in their sights before the multitude, stripping them naked to the view of their wicked Companions, taunting and mocking them with reproachful words, sending them away in such a shameful, or rather shameless manner that they have (most of them) either died for grief, or starved with want and cold, such cruelty was never known before.  
As to speak of the ravishing of wives, maids and Virgins in particular, it would take up a great volume, and therefore I leave that to the consideration of such as have learned, what effects fruits and mischiefs, wars and Rebellions produce,  
The Priests and Jesuits commonly anoint the rebels with their sacrament of the unction, before they go to murder and rob, assuring them that for their meritorious service, if they chance to die or be killed, they shall escape Purgatory and go to heaven immediately, and what they can get by stealing and murdering shall be their own, a good reward for such a bloody and murdering service, and what man will not venture upon such conditions to get wealth upon earth, and heaven for murder? O Damnable Doctrine, and Doctors!  
After they have murdered men; surprising them cowardly and treacherously, they do usually mangle their dead Carcases, laying wagers which shall cut deepest into their dead flesh with their skeyns as they did unto one master Champion, a justice of the peace in the province of Ulster, whom they cruelly murdered by treachery, and one Master Iremonger, whom they killed, as he was at prayers in Master Champion's house, and also destroying the whole household.  
One worthy gentleman near Belturbat, in the province of Ulster, was surprised as he was at Dinner with his virtuous▪ wife and four small children, and after they had robbed them, and all his family, and stripped them naked, they threatened them to kill them, if they went not away presently, who coming towards Dublin, hoping that way to find some comfort, the further they came the more miserable they were beholding others of their friends handled in the same manner, which struck in them such amazement, and bred in them such fear, that being hopeless, & helpless they, sat down in a Ditch, where they were all found dead by some Troopers, the Gentleman and his wife having their arms embracing one th'▪ other were found dead, but a sucking Child, which was between them, was alive grabling and striving for the dead mother's breast, who was taken up by the Troopers and carried to a Nurse.  
At Belturbat they robbed all the English, being about 500 persons, who submitting themselves to their mercy found no quarter but cruelty, for they stripped them all naked, and so turned them out of the town to shift for themselves in bitter cold weather, in a most shameful manner, not affording them a rag to cover those parts, which should be hid, amongst which company there was one Master Hudson the Minister of the said town of Belturbat, a Religious and Godly Minister and his wife, whom they abused in a shameful manner, not sit to be spoken.  
In another town the English fled all into the Church being ab one two hundred and twenty, where they remained 3. days and nights both men, women, and children, till they were almost starved, and so were forced to come forth, whom these cruel rebels stripped out of their Clothes, and drove them over the Bridge at the towns end naked, having before cut off the middle Arch, unknown to those poor Christians, with a devilish intent there to murder them (as they did) for coming to the middle of the Bridge, they found no passage; for the poor naked souls must either go back, or fall in and be drowned: some that went back they kil●d, some that fell in the water were drowned, some that could swim, the cruel rebels run and met them at the water side, and knocked them on the heads in the water, O merciless and cruel murderers!  
Many Ladies, and Gentlewomen, which have been great with Child they have turned them out of doors, where they have been delivered in the open fields upon a little straw, without the help of any woman, and so having ended their misery▪ others that have escaped death in Childbearing, they have mercilessly carried away upon Carts (lying in stinking and lousy straw stark naked) to places where they and their poor infants have been murdered  
The Lord Blany escaped their cruelty, being forced to ride 14. miles upon a poor Garroon or jade without Bridle or Saddle to save his life, his Lady being taken and his children the same day, and imprisoned by the bloody and cruel villains, who use her most barbarously and her children, neither regarding her nobleness of birth nor her Lord, but suffer her, or rather force her to lodge in straw, with a poor allowance of two pence a day, for her relief▪ and poor sweet children▪ and to add affliction to the good Lady's misery, slew a kinsman of hers▪ and caused him to be hanged up two days and nights before her face to afflict and terrify her.  
It is most certain that many thousands have suffered in this nature and worse▪ as I have heard reported by very honest and credible persons who (through God's mercy) have escaped their cruelty, for it hath been told me by the mouths of very Religious and Godly Divines▪ who came over with me in the same ship, wherein I came from Dublin▪ how they had lost their wives▪ their children▪ and their estates, being glad to fly for their lives, having not left wherewithal to pay for their own carriage into England, some of them to mine own knowledge▪ having lost very great estates.  
Upon the 8. of December last, the Lords of the Pale▪ (so called because they live round about the City of Dublin, in the province of Leinster) did generally meet at a village called the Saintred, & there did mutually protest against the King's Government, and then and there proclaimed that all the English should depart the kingdom within 14▪ days'▪ or otherwise they should expect nothing but fire and sword▪ which being known to the Lords justices, all the Papists in Dublin were presently disarmed: at or about the same time the Lord Fitz William of Miriam, living near Bullock, and within two miles of Dublin, sent word to the Lords justices that there was 1500. of the rebels would come down from the County of Wickloe to Bulloch, and so come from thence in flat boats, to surprise the shipping at the Rings end which is the harbour, and where there lay at that time about 27. ships of the English and Dutch, whereupon the Lords justices, sent a hundred soldiers from Dublin, to be dispersed into several ships for their safety, and gave order, under their hands to the Capt. of the Kings Frygot a man of war, who rid at Anchor by us, to have a special care of our ship called the phoenix and (if occasion were) to guard us safe over the Ba● of Dublin so that we were driven to keep a Guard many nights on shipboard for fear of a surprise, for the rebels were come to a place called Finglas within two miles of Dublin, so that we were driven to leave our houses (living in the suburbs) for fear of firing, and so lay aboard 14. days and nights in our Clothes, before we had a wind to carry us to Hollyhead, the King's Attorney for Ireland, Sir Thomas Tempest, the Bishop of Ardagh, Sir Robert Dixon, Sir Robert Ford, Mr. Carleton, and divers Ladies and Gentlewomen, being all passengers in the same Ship.  
As for the number of the rebels, it is not certainly known; but without question there is a great many of them, but not the third part of them armed, and those arms they have, they have taken from the English▪ in surprising and murdering them cowardly and treacherously, and some of them under pretence of being robbed by the rebels, have deceitfully gotten arms to go fight against them, and then have run away from their captains to the rebels, and indeed there is no trust nor confidence to be put in them, they are so treacherously perfidious.  
It is suspected, that the chief rebels do intend to steal away by Sea (having gotten a great estate from the English Plantators whom they have robbed and murdered) and so leave the ignorant rabble of Irish in the lurch.  
There is a great want of English protestants for soldiers, not only to secure the City of Dublin and the Suburbs, but also to relieve the distressed estate of the Lord Viscount Moor in Drogheda, who deserves both love, praise, and honour.  
It is to be believed that the rebels will never give a battle▪ and that in short time they will be starved for want of food, for they have gotten in most parts from the English all they can get, and they wast and devour that plenty they have, and there is neither ploughing nor sowing in those parts, so that it will be impossible for them to subsist long.  
It is most certain that 1400. Soldier's volunteers, were landed at Dublin, under the Command of captain Harcot, and other captains upon the second day of January last Anno 1641. which was a great comfort to the English, and 400. Soldiers which were not in pay went along with them, so that the whole number was 1800. men. and marched along from the Rings end to Dublin in battle Array in very good order.  
They report and allege that Religion is the cause of their war, but that is false, for they have had too much liberty and freedom of conscience in Ireland, and that hath made them rebel. I hope that God that hath discovered their bloody practice, will confound their devices, and bring them to confusion. To the which God be all honour, praise and Glory for ever.  
FINIS.