Remonstrance

Remonstrance, the ‘loyal formulary of Irish remonstrance’, a statement in the name of the Catholics of Ireland acknowledging Charles II as lawful king, to be obeyed under pain of sin, any papal claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Drafted by Richard Bellings in December 1661, the Remonstrance was supported by leading laymen anxious to secure their position in the Restoration land settlement, but opposed by a large majority among the clergy. Ormond, as lord lieutenant, actively encouraged the minority of Remonstrants while harassing their opponents. In June 1666 he permitted a meeting of Catholic clergy in Dublin to consider the declaration, but rejected its offer of an alternative formula (later condemned by Rome) repudiating the pope's temporal authority. The controversy reopened the divisions on the relationship between religious and political loyalties that had arisen during the Confederate War, the continuity being reinforced by the involvement of Peter Walsh as a leading supporter of the Remonstrance and Edmund O'Reilly as an opponent. As in the 1640s it was generally Old English Catholics that were most ready to seek an accommodation with the crown, although in this case even many Old English clergy, like Oliver Plunkett, were strongly opposed to the Remonstrance.