ABSTRACT
In traditional histories of early Restoration Ireland the experience of the Catholic church and its clergy has been largely relegated to a peripheral position. On the eve of the Restoration, while officiating as coadjutor bishop to the Archbishop of Santiago-della-Compostella in Spain, French published a pamphlet in response to the peace negotiations then underway between France and Spain which would ultimately culminate in the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659. French concluded his pre-Restoration address by again reminding the Catholic powers that the events of the 1640s and thereafter could have been prevented by their combined intervention against the parliamentary forces in Britain and Ireland. This clearly shows that French believed that a Franco-Spanish sponsored restoration of the monarchy in the Stuart realms could evolve from the peace negotiations then under way. French supported this by including a letter sent to Charles by Louis XIV in September 1660 in favour of their restoration.
