Peter Walsh (c. 1618 – March 15, 1688), Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 and controversialist, was born at Mooretown, County Kildare

County Kildare

County Kildare is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county...

, and studied at Leuven

Leuven

Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...

, where he joined the Franciscans and acquired Jansenist sympathies

Jansenism

Jansenism was a Christian theological movement, primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. The movement originated from the posthumously published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Otto Jansen, who died in 1638...

.

In 1646 he went to Kilkenny

Kilkenny

Kilkenny is a city and is the county town of the eponymous County Kilkenny in Ireland. It is situated on both banks of the River Nore in the province of Leinster, in the south-east of Ireland...

, then in the hands of the rebel "confederate Catholics

Confederate Ireland

Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...

," and, in opposition to the papal nuncio Rinuccini

Giovanni Battista Rinuccini

Giovanni Battista Rinuccini was a Roman Catholic archbishop in the mid seventeenth century. He was a noted legal scholar who became chamberlain to Pope Gregory XV, who made him the Archbishop of Fermo in Italy...

, urged, and in 1649 helped to secure, peace with the viceroy Ormonde

James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde

James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde PC was an Irish statesman and soldier. He was the second of the Kilcash branch of the family to inherit the earldom. He was the friend of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, who appointeed him commander of the Cavalier forces in Ireland. From 1641 to 1647, he...

 on behalf of King Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

. Walsh was arrested by the militant Irish Confederate Catholic faction in 1646, along with other "peace party" advocates like Richard Bellings

Richard Bellings

Richard Bellings was a lawyer and political figure in 17th century Ireland and in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He is best known for his participation in Confederate Ireland, a short-lived independent Irish state, in which he served on the governing body called the Supreme Council...

  in 1646, after the Treaty they had negotiated with Ormonde and the English Royalists was rejected in the Confederate General Assembly. Those opposed to the Treaty included militant Catholic clergy led by the Papal Nuncio Rinuccini) who wanted Roman Catholicism established as the state religion in Ireland and Irish lords, such as Owen Roe O'Neill, who wanted to recover the lands and power their families had lost after the Plantations of Ireland

Plantations of Ireland

Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands....

. Walsh returned to favour in 1649, when military defeat made the Confederates accept a new Peace Treaty with Ormonde and Charles I. However, the new Royalist/Confederate alliance was crushed after Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

's conquest of Ireland

Cromwellian conquest of Ireland

The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in 1649...

 in 1649-53. All Catholic clergy captured by the Cromwellians were executed and Walsh, in danger of death, fled Ireland. He subsequently lived obscurely in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and abroad.

The Irish Remonstrance

On the restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

 he urged his patron Ormonde to support the Irish Roman Catholics as the natural friends of Royalty against the Protestant sectaries, who had supported the Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

Wars of the Three Kingdoms

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms formed an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in England, Ireland, and Scotland between 1639 and 1651 after these three countries had come under the "Personal Rule" of the same monarch...

. Walsh endeavoured to mitigate their lot and efface the impression made by their successive rebellions by a loyal remonstrance to Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

, boldly repudiating papal infallibility

Papal infallibility

Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when in his official capacity he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals...

 and interference in public affairs, and affirming undivided allegiance to the crown. For eight years he canvassed for signatures to this address, but in spite of considerable support the strenuous opposition of the Jesuits and Dominicans

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 deterred the clergy and nearly wrecked the scheme. (See also: Act of Settlement 1662

Act of Settlement 1662

The Act of Settlement 1662 passed by the Irish Parliament in Dublin. It was a partial reversal of the Cromwellian Act of Settlement 1652, which punished Irish Catholics and Royalists for fighting against the English Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms by the wholesale confiscation of their...

 for Irish politics at the time).

Later life

From 1669 until his death he lived in London, much respected for his honesty, loyalty and learning. Excommunicated by the Franciscan chapter-general in 1670, he remained a devout adherent of his church, although he maintained friendly relations with the Anglicans, accepting their orders and attending their churches. He made a full submission to Rome

Vatican City

Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

 before his death, though the fact has been questioned.

He wrote (1672-1684) a series of controversial letters against Pope Gregory VII

Pope Gregory VII

Pope St. Gregory VII , born Hildebrand of Sovana , was Pope from April 22, 1073, until his death. One of the great reforming popes, he is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, his dispute with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor affirming the primacy of the papal...

's doctrine of papal supremacy over princes; a voluminous History of the Remonstrance (1674); Hibernica (1682), a history of Ireland; in 1686 a reply to the Popery of Thomas Barlow (1607-1691), Barlow

Thomas Barlow (bishop)

Thomas Barlow was an English academic and clergyman, who became Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford and Bishop of Lincoln. He was considered, in his own times and by Edmund Venables writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, to have been a trimmer, a reputation mixed in with his academic...

 being the bishop of Lincoln

Bishop of Lincoln

The Bishop of Lincoln is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury.The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The Bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral...

; and other works. In these writings he consistently upheld the doctrine of civil liberty against the pretensions of the papacy.