Between 1649 – 1653 the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, invaded Ireland. In charge of a regiment raised in Kent from April 1649 was a Colonel Robert Phaire. Phaire had formed his regiment from volunteers who had opposed the Royalists in 1648 who were now being disbanded.
Phaire was a Regicide, one of the three officers to whom the 1649 warrant for the execution of Charles I was addressed. However, he refused to sign the order to the executioners. For this he was arrested but not tried, and released in 1662. It has been suggested Phaire escaped severe punishment at the Restoration by having married the daughter of Sir Thomas Herbert.
One of my tenth great grandfathers Paul Cudmore (abt 1614 – abt 1700) was a lawyer who came to Ireland with Cromwell’s army in the regiment of Colonel Phaire. Paul’s future father-in-law, Captain Michael Gale (died 1681), one of my 11th great grandfathers, was a member of the same regiment.
In 1663 Paul Cudmore and Michael Gale were implicated in a plot to overthrow the new King. Cudmore and Gale were named in a deposition sent on 26 June 1663 by Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery to King Charles II informing the King of a plot to overthrow the government.
Orrery wrote, “The four mentioned in his enclosed deposition were officers who served under Phaier.” Orrery imprisoned Paul Cudmore, Gale, the two other men, and Colonel Phaire. The deposition stated :
On a Sabbath day in the afternoon about the end of April last, deponent met Mr. Samuel Corbett, who told deponent that Captain Michael Gale wished to speak to him. Deponent was asked to meet Gale, Captain John Taylor, Paul Cudmore and Corbett at the Stone- house beyond the bridge of Carrigeline [Carrigalinel], in the barony of Kirricarry [Kerricurihy] , co. Cork, on the next Wednesday.
On 31 July 1663 James Butler, Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, ordered Phaire’s release. In 1660 Ormond had played a part in Phaire’s acquittal of the charge of regicide. I assume Paul Cudmore and Michael Gale were released at the same time.
Although the Earl of Orrery referred to Paul Cudmore as an army officer under Phaire, only two of the men he named were given an army rank. I think it is likely that Cudmore served Phaire in an administrative rather than a military role.
Paul Cudmore practiced as a solicitor and in the 1680s served in that capacity to Colonel Phaire at the time of his death in 1682.
Cudmore married Anne Gale in 1655 becoming the son-in-law of Captain Michael Gale.
Carrigaline, on the River Owenabue, is a town in County Cork, Ireland, about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) south of the city of Cork.
There are several bridges. One to the west of Carrigaline, called the Ballea bridge, leads to Ballea castle, possibly the stone house referred to in the 1663 deposition. The present Ballea castle was built around 1660.
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