BORLASE, Edmund. The History of the Irish Rebellion, Traced from many Preceding Acts, to the Grand Eruption The 23d of October, 1641 (John Cliffe’s Copy of the Scarce Dublin Edition)

And thence pursued to the Act of Settlement, 1662. To which are added Letters to and from Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, Preston ... relating to the Sieges, Battles and remarkable Passages mentioned in the following History, never before printed; taken from Original MSS of Mr. Cliffe, an Intimate of Cromwell’s and Secretary to General Ireton. Dublin: Printed by and for Oli. Nelson, at Milton’s Head in Skinner-Row; and for Charles Connor, at Pope’s Head, near Essex-Gate, 1743. Folio. pp. [ii], [2 (List of Subscribers)], iii-xxii, 420, [8 (index)], 46 (appendix), plus folding table. Rebound at the Abrams Bindery in half calf on marbled boards, titled in gilt on red morocco label on spine. Early armorial stamp of John Cliffe on verso of titlepage. Ex lib The Irish Central Library for Students with neat circular stamps. A near fine copy with a magnificent provenance.

JISC with 4 locations. ESTC T139783.
Anonymous. By Edmund Borlase. Folding table ‘Accounts for Subduing the Rebellion’ facing p. 230. Part-title on p. [391]: A collection of murthers in several counties of Ireland. With list of subscribers, an index and an appendix.
Edmund Borlase (1620-1682) historic writer and physician, was son of Sir John Borlase, who received the appointment of master-general of the ordnance, Ireland, in 1634, and held office as Lord Justice here from 1640 to 1643. He was born in Dublin and is stated to have been educated at Trinity College and Leiden where he received the degree of doctor of physic in 1650. He subsequently settled in Chester, where, according to Wood, he “practised his faculty with good success to his dying day.” Borlase in 1660 received the degree of doctor of medicine from the university of Oxford. He enjoyed the patronage of Charles Stanley, Earl of Derby, to whom he dedicated a treatise. The present tome is Edmund’s best known work and was undertaken chiefly with the object of demonstrating that the English government in Ireland had not acted against the royal interests nor unjustly towards Irish Catholics.
He obtained a copy of an unpublished treatise on Irish affairs by Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon which he plagiarised for this work. The period covered is that leading up to “the grand eruption the 23 of October, 1641” and thereafter through to the Act of Settlement of 1662.
Provenance: Early armorial stamp of John Cliffe (d. 1691), administrator, was the son of Anthony Cliffe of Westminster. He was secretary to the Commissioners dispatched to Ulster by the parliament of England in 1645-7. In 1650-51 he acted as secretary to Henry Ireton, Lord Deputy and successor to Oliver Cromwell as military commander in Ireland. In November 1651 he delivered news of the capture of Limerick to the council of state in London. The 1743 edition of the History of the Execrable Irish Rebellion by Edmund Borlase printed, as an appendix, a collection of letters from Ireton and others, with connecting narrative, describing events from the capture of Ross (19 October 1649) to the surrender of Waterford (6 August 1650) and described as ‘taken from the Original Manuscripts of Mr. Cliffe, Secretary to General Ireton’. Cliffe may have been the author of the narrative sections.
It is possible that he was the same man as the John Cliffe who took a lease of Courtown, County Wexford, in 1638, and who was dispossessed and briefly imprisoned following the outbreak of insurrection in the area in November 1641, but who, with his wife, Mawdlen, son Henry, and sister-in-law Jane Harrison, was released in exchange for a prisoner taken by the Dublin authorities in June 1642. The later John Cliffe married Eleanor Loftus, fifth daughter of Nicholas Loftus of Fethard, Co. Wexford, and had six sons and five daughters. Whether this was a second marriage, or whether the two men were distinct, is unclear. This later John Cliffe received grants of lands in counties Meath and Wexford in the 1650s, confirmed to him in 1667, and expanded his holdings in County Wexford, residing at Dungulph in that county. In 1661 he was elected MP for Taghmon, County Wexford, and he served as high sheriff of that County in 1680-81. He died in 1691. John, the eldest son and heir (1661-1728) was an Irish barrister, landowner and politician. He sat in the Irish House of Commons for many years, where he was often called on to speak for the Government, and held the office of Serjeant-at-law (Ireland). He was probably born at Dungulpf Castle, near Fethard-on-Sea, County Wexford. He was the eldest son among the eleven children of John Cliffe and Eleanor Loftus, fifth daughter of Nicholas Loftus of Fethard and Margaret Chetham. At the Restoration of Charles II his Cromwellian past was not held against him: he was confirmed in the numerous grants of land he had received in Wexford and in County Meath, including Dungulf and Mulrankin. He became a respected local politician, serving as MP for Taghmon 1661-6 and High Sheriff of Wexford 1680-81. He died in 1691.
In the early nineteenth century, the Cliffe family bought Bellevue, Ballyhogue, County Wexford, which became the main family residence. The family extensively rebuilt the house, with results which were praised as “magnificent”. It was burnt to the ground in 1923 during the Irish Civil War.

[Cat 163]