UC-NRLF $B 755 7E7 L |M|^P ■ ■ H ■ H H1H BaaE ^m BSiia >^tj$& ■JEBMi ..-•/,?•, ■■HI aw ■ SB >.v ■ h s^aNtraSS^- SUSS V P I ■ r .<^ IB S5S9^ f-w3 ■ H ■ $$# •w'., ■ I ■ ■ ill ■^1 ■ ■ ■■■■ ■WlSm HHRI gfljg B 3« BS ■I H IH1 at? ■■■1 53S iHKI ■ ■ *v'',.:-. _H ■Hi 9wS HI TBI ■■I ■■1 ■ /yr TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY ^^-^ / TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY I. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II II. THE ALLEGED VIOLATION OF THE TREATY OF LIMERICK I'.Y T. DUNBAR JNGRAM, LL.D. AUTHOR OF ' A HISTORY OF THE LEGISLATIVE UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND ' " Irish policy is Irish history, and I have no faith in any statesman who attempts to remedy the evils of Ireland who is either ignorant of the past or who will not take lessons from it." — Beaconsfield. iLontion MA'CMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1888 All rights reserved ,4 y CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II PAGE Section I. Ireland from 1641 to the Accession of James II . . . .1 „ II. The Preparation for the Parliament . 29 III. The Parliament of 1689 . . .59 CHAPTER II THE ALLEGED VIOLATION OF THE TREATY OF LIMERICK Section I. The Second Siege and Treaty of Limerick 93 „ II. The Charge of Intolerance against the Irish Protestant Parliament . .124 APPENDIX 1. Two Columns of Names from the List of Persons Attainted by the Irish Parliament . . 141 2. Treaty of Limerick, as Ratified by their Majesties' Letters Patent under the Great Seal of England 143 250245 CHAPTER I THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II ' > > > ■ SECTION I IRELAND FROM 1641 TO THE ACCESSION OF JAMES II The forty years which immediately preceded the break- ing out of the Eebelliou of 1G41 were the most peaceful and prosperous which Ireland had seen for centuries. The industrial progress of the island during this period was remarkable. For the first time in her history Ireland paid her way. The soil was greatly improved by applying to it modes of husbandry with which the native inhabitants had hitherto been unacquainted. New and profitable employments were introduced, manufactures were established. The linen manufacture in particular had made such an advance as to establish among our historians the mistaken idea that it was first introduced by Lord Strafford. 1 The value of lands and their rents had increased. In 1640 the customs amounted to almost four times the sum which was received from them at the commencement of the century. Shipping had increased a 1 Lon" before Strafford was born linen cloth was manufactured in and exported from Ireland. To buy linen cloth, except in open fair, was punishable by the 33 Henry VIII, c. 2. By the 11 Eliz. c. 10 it was forbidden to export linen yarns without paying the enormous duty of twelvepence a pound. By the 13 Eliz. c. 1 it was provided that none but merchants inhabiting staple or corporate towns should export cloth made of linen yarn. The Eev. Charles O'Conor says, " The antiquity of linen cloth in Ireland is lost in the night of the remotest ages of our history." — Historical Address, pt. ii. p. 255. B ■ • ■ TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i hundredfold, commerce had extended, and the export trade was in the most satisfactory condition. Sir John Davis, writing in 1G13, tells us in his quaint and figurative language that the strings of the Irish harp were all in tune and made a good harmony in the commonwealth : " So as we may well conceive a hope that Ireland . . . will from henceforth prove a land of peace and concord." 1 But the strings of the Irish harp were not fated to be long in tune, or to give forth harmonious sounds. The growing prosperity of Ireland was shattered in a moment. Encouraged by the Scotch invasion of England, and by the successes which his revolted subjects had obtained over Charles I, the Irish wantonly threw away the blessings offered them by Providence. The rebellion broke out on the 22d of October 1641. At first it was purely anti-English. The northern rebels declared that " they would not leave an Englishman in the country ; that they would have no English king, but one of their own nation, and Sir Phelim O'Neal should be their king ; that neither the King nor Queen of England should govern Ireland any longer ; that if they had His Majesty in their power they would flay him alive ; that they would give a great sum of money to have his head," etc. 2 But Roger Moore persuaded the rebels to refrain from open threats against the English, and to rest the whole merits of their case upon the subject of religion. The race-feeling of the northern Irish against the English was so strong that it even extended to and was directed against the Roman Catholics of the Pale because they were of English descent. Whilst Ambrose Bedell, son 1 For evidence as to the prosperous condition of Ireland before 1641 see Leland, iii. 41 ; Clarendon's Irish Rebellion, pp. 6-9 ; O'Conor's Historical Address, pt.*ii. p. 255; Carte's Ormond, i. 87, folio ed. ; Sir George Radcliffe's Essay towards a Life of Lord Strafford. Richard Belling, in his History of the Irish Confederation, gives very strong testimony to the same effect. 2 Carte's Ormond, i. 178. sec. I THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 3 of the well-known Bishop Bedell, was prisoner among the rebels, he often heard the Ulster Irish threatening those of the Pale and using such expressions to them as these, " You churls with the great breeches, do you think that, if we were rid of the other English, we would spare you ? No ! for we would cut all your throats, for you are of one race with them, though we make use of you for the present." 1 When the rebellion broke out, more than two-thirds of the landed property of Ireland was in the hands of the Eoman Catholics, who were Celts either by blood or by traditions. 2 This one fact, of which there is not the slightest doubt, reveals to us the striking difference between the way the Normans acted in England and that in which the English acted in Ireland ; and brings out the startling contrast between the conduct of the Saxon after the conquest and that of the Irish native after the English invasion. In England, after the battle of Hastings, there was not a single estate, certainly not one that was desirable in a Norman's eye, which was not transferred to one of the invaders. Yet the despoiled Saxon, after a few generations, forgot his wrongs and coalesced with his conqueror to form with him a national unity. In Ireland, notwithstanding some cases of encroach- ment, the Celt over the greater portion of the country was left in possession of his land. But the Irish native has ever sullenly refused to unite loyally with the Englishman and to share his labours and progress. To him time has brought no amnesty of complaints,no limitation of offences, and no healing onits wings. The reason of the difference in the conduct of the Saxon and the Celtic communities is not far to seek. Long before the Norman conquest the steady pressure of force had consolidated 1 Deposition of Ambrose Bedell, Hickson's Ireland in the Seven- teenth Century, i. 218. 2 Sir William Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland. Colonel Laurence says the Roman Catholics before the rebellion owned ten acres to one possessed by the English. — The Interest of Ireland, pt. ii. c. 2. 4 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chai>. i the Saxon principalities into a kingdom, and the idea of a single sovereign and central power had taken a firm hold on the English mind. But nothing like this had happened in Ireland, where a crowd of chiefs exercised perpetual wars against one another. The tribal or clannish spirit, which is wholly antagonistic to the conception of a State or to union under a strong central authority, survived in the Irish Celt. 1 It was this spirit which disabled him in the past from raising himself to the idea of a united nation : it is the same spirit which at the present time disqualifies him from conceiving that of an Empire. So deeply is this notion of a limited separate interest apart from the general interests of the common weal, engrained in the Irish mind, that it has been introduced into our parliamentary system by the representatives of Celtic Ireland. These representatives, unable to grasp the concep- tion of serving for the whole realm, have cast aside the sacred duty of voting freely and independently according to their conscience. They have bound themselves by a covenant to sit, act, and vote, not as the interests of the Empire demand, but according as a majority of themselves shall dictate. 2 The failure of Great Britain to conciliate the Irish Celt is but a temporary one. For it is not for want of the incorpor- ating genius that she has not succeeded in this case. The British race has proved, and is daily proving, its capacity for absorbing and assimilating alien and foreign nationalities. The Scotch, Welsh, and Cornish Celts are hardly distinguish- 1 A keen observer remarked the disintegrating effects of the tribal system in Gaul. In Gallia, says Csesar, non solum in omnibus pagis partibusque, seal pene etiam in singulis domibus factiones sunt. 2 This covenant runs as follows : " I pledge myself that in the event of my election to Parliament I will sit, act, and vote with the Irish parliamentary party ; and if at a meeting of the party, convened upon due notice specially to consider the question, it be determined by a resolution supported by a majority of the entire parliamentary party, that I have not fulfilled the above pledge, I hereby undertake forthwith to resign my seat." sec. I THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 5 able from the rest of our nation. Danes and Normans have for centuries sunk into the general body of the people. The French Huguenots and the Flemish artisans have long for- gotten the land and the tongue of their fathers. The Hindoo, the Mussulman, the Sikh, and the Buddhist are pressing eagerly into the family of the imperial mother. Of the three hundred millions of British subjects, more than a third of the human race, three and a half millions only — Irish Celts — stand apart sullen and discontented. The Irish branch of the great Celtic family alone remains unreconciled. It is the only one among the Celtic communities which has given up its own tongue and adopted that of the invader, together with his manners, customs, arts, and literature, and has at the same time refused to consider itself a child of the same house- hold with the stranger. Yet there is nothing in the Celtic nature which presents a perennial bar to complete incorporation. Not to speak of the cases of Scotland, of Wales, and of Cornwall, the Celts of Gaul borrowed the language and civilisation of Borne, and became in time as Roman as the Bomans themselves. The rebellion of 1641 lasted more than eleven years, for it was not until the 27th of September 1653 that the Parlia- ment was enabled to declare it at an end. It would be impossible within a limited space to give even a sketch of the boundless confusion and universal misery of these disastrous years. Europe has never witnessed, even in the Thirty Years' war, such a scene of discord and anarchy as prevailed in this small island during this period. It is wearisome to read, it would be useless, if possible, to relate the innumerable compli- cations, transformations, entrances and exits, which took place. 1 There were always five parties in the field, sometimes 1 Thus Owen Roe O'Neill was (1) opposed to Munro and the Ormondists ; (2) to the Confederates, while he supported the Nuncio and the papal party ; (3) he joined the parliamentary party and relieved Londonderry, which Coote held for that party ; Owen receiv- ing £2000 in money, some ammunition, and 2000 cows ; (4) he 6 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i six, — the Northern Irish, the Royalists under Ormond, the Confederates of Kilkenny, the parliamentary party, the Nuncio's party, and Munro's Presbyterians. Though we can but glance at the actors and events of the rebellion, we are only too well acquainted with its fatal results. The historian 1 informs us that " the desolation of the island was complete. One third of the people had perished or been driven into exile. Famine and plague had finished the work of the sword. The fields lay uncultivated ; and the miserable remnants of the flying population were driven to live on carrion and human corpses. The wolves so increased in numbers, even around the city of Dublin itself, that the counties were taxed for their extermination, and rewards were paid of five pounds for the head of a full-grown wolf, and two pounds for that of a cub." 2 When the English Government at the close of the re- bellion had obtained possession of the country, and subdued the factions which had so long preyed on the vitals of Ire- land, the parliamentary scheme for the settlement of Ireland was carried into effect. The plan had been drawn up in August 1G52, before the complete pacification of the country, and is to be found among the Acts of that year. 3 This plan finally agreed to unite with Ormond, and was on his march to join him when he died at Cloughouter, 6th November 1 649. The career of Ebher MacMahon, Bishop of Clogher, was as variable as that of Owen O'Neill. 1 Walpole. " Ludlow says that at the end of the war " a proclamation was published forbidding the killing of lambs and calves for the year next ensuing, that the country might recover a stock again, which had been so exhausted by the wars that many of the natives who had com- mitted all manner of waste upon the possessions of the English were driven to such extremities that they starved with hunger ; and I have been informed by persons deserving credit that the same calamity fell upon them even in the first year of the rebellion through the depreda- tions of the Irish • and that they roasted men and eat them to supply their necessities." — Memoirs, i. 338. 3 " Settling of Ireland," c. 13, 1652. Qcohell's Acts and Ordinances, p. 197. sec. I THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 7 will ever be regarded with different eyes by two classes of readers. One class, fixing its attention on the sufferings of individuals and the vicissitudes of families, will deplore the misfortunes of ancient and respectable houses, and exclaim against the scheme and its projectors. The other class will merge their compassion for individuals in their indignation at the misery of the great body of the people brought to destruction by the sins and wickedness of their natural leaders. The general scope of the settlement w T as to punish the Irish aristocracy and gentry who had misgoverned their country, arrested the growing prosperity of Ireland, and plunged the land into a scene of bloodshed and anarchy compared with which the French Revolution was a peaceful reform. The object of the settlement was to bring home and limit the punishment to the castle and mansion, while it held out security and protection to the cottage and the hovel. The settlement has been misrepresented, but it remains in black and white, and ought to be examined and consulted by all who wish to have clear and distinct ideas respecting it. The first thing which strikes a reader of it is its leniency. 1 It was not a plan for the transplantation of a whole com- munity, but for the removal of the leaders of that community, who had neglected the laws upon which societies are based, 1 Here are all the provisions of the Settlement with the exception of two, which relate to estates tail and individuals under articles of surrender : — " 1. 'All husbandmen, ploughmen, labourers, artificers and others of the inferior sort ' are received into protection. They and all per- sons ' having no real estate nor personal estate to the value of ten pounds ' [a sum equivalent to .£50 now] are pardoned for any act or thing done during the rebellion. "2. All who before the 10th of November 1642 contrived or promoted the rebellion, murders, and massacres, excepted from pardon. " 3. Jesuits and priests who had contrived or promoted the re- bellion, or any of the murders and massacres, excepted. " 4. A hundred and six Anglo-Irish and Irish persons excepted by name. 8 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i who had turned their country into a hell upon earth for twelve long years, and who had caused the death of more than half a million of their fellow citizens. The follies and crimes of the Irish aristocracy and gentry were infinitely greater than those which the French aristocracy and gentry expiated a hundred and fifty years later by a universal con- fiscation and their own decimation. The Irish had established a government in opposition to that of England ; they had convened a general assembly of their nation regularly formed into Lords and Commons ; raised armies and appointed generals ; erected courts of justice ; drawn up a new oath of allegiance ; despatched envoys to invite foreign powers, the Pope, Emperor, and King of France, to lend their assist- ance ; and finally they had hawked the crown of Ireland about Europe, and ottered it to any Catholic prince who would take it under his protection. Yet the punishment which overtook the Irish aristocracy was infinitely less severe than that which befell the nobility and gentry of France. " 5. Principals and accessories to the murder of private persons, not officers either in the English, or Irish armies, excepted. " 6. Twenty- eight days, after publication of a future notice, allowed to persons in arms to submit, otherwise excepted. " 7. Persons who had borne high commands, as generals, colonels, governors of forts, marshals of provinces, etc., to be banished during pleasure of Parliament and to forfeit two-thirds of their estates ; lands to the value of the remaining third to be assigned to their wives and children in such parts of Ireland as the Parliament should determine. "8. Power to parliamentary commissioners or commander-in-chief to declare pardon for their lives to all other persons who had been in arms ; such persons, however, to forfeit two-thirds of their estates, lauds to the value of the remaining third to be assigned them in such parts of Ireland as the Parliament should determine. "9. All Roman Catholic proprietors who had resided in Ireland from the commencement of the rebellion to the 1st of March 1650, and had not manifested their constant good affection to the Common- wealth, to forfeit one-third of their Lands ; lands to the value of the other two-thirds to be assigned them in such places as the Parliament should think lit. All others who had not manifested 'their good affection ' to forfeit one-fifth." sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 9 Not a head of the whole Irish body fell upon the scaffold except for private murder, 1 and when the convulsion had been brought to a close, a decent competence in land was allowed its members for the support of themselves and their families. After the rebellion the landed property which re- mained in the hands of the Roman Catholics amounted to about one hundred thousand Irish acres of profitable lands in the other parts of Ireland, and seven hundred thousand acres of the same kind in Connaught and Clare. 2 This proportion continued down through the interregnum till the restoration of Charles II in 1660. 3 When in 1655, at the end of the rebellion, the English settlers obtained possession of the lands which were dis- tributed to them under the Parliamentary Settlement, the desolation of the country was complete. Ireland was a wilderness, over which the storms of war, of pestilence, and of famine had raged without intermission for twelve years. But the adventurers and soldiers set to work with a will, aided by the peasants, who remained in their homes as tenants or servants to the new proprietors. Industry, as usual, was followed by its natural results, and Ireland soon began to put on a new face. Even Clarendon, the author of the absurd story that the English Parliament intended the extermination of the Irish, admits that the country flourished to an unexampled extent under this arrangement. Two pictures of the state of Ireland, one of its condition before 1 Sir Phelim O'Neill was not only tried for treason, but for being accessory to six murders. — Hickson's Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, i. 157. 2 State of the Papist and Protestant properties in Ireland in 1641, 1653, ami 1662. In the Thorpe collection. 3 Sir William Petty estimated the surface of Ireland in this way — 10,500,000 Irish acres = 16,800,000 English acres, of which 3,000,000 were bogs, unprofitable land, etc., leaving 7,500,000 = 12,000,000 Eng- lish measurement of good land. Ireland actually contains 20,815,460 English acres ; so that Petty underestimated the contents of the country by a little more than four millions of English acres. 10 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i the Parliamentary Settlement, and the other subsequent to it, will give us an idea of the misery to which the Irish aristo- cracy and the priesthood had reduced the island, and of the prosperity which sprang up with the order and industry introduced by the settlers. Colonel Eichard Laurence, a par- liamentary officer, and afterwards a member of the Council of Trade in the reign of Charles II, is the author of the first : — "About the years 1652 and 1653 the plague and famine had swept away whole countries, that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living creature, either man, beast, or bird, they being either all dead or had quit those desolate places, that our soldiers would tell stories of the place where they saw a smoke, it was so rare to see either smoke by day or fire or candle by night ; and when Ave did meet with two or three poor cabins, none but very aged men with women and children, and those with the prophet might have complained, We have become as a Lottie in the smoke, our skin is as black as an oven because of the terrible famine, I have seen those miserable creatures plucking stinking carrion out of a ditch black and rotten, and have been credibly informed they have digged corps out of the grave to eat. But the most tragical story I ever heard was from an officer commanding a party of horse hunting for tories in a dark night, [who] discovered a light which they supposed to be a fire, which the tories usually made in those waste countries to dress their provisions and warm themselves ; but drawing near they found it a ruined cabin, and besetting it round some did alight and peep in at the window, where they saw a great fire of wood and a company of miserable old women and children sitting round it. and betwixt them and the fire a dead corpse lay broiling, which as the fire roasted they cut off collops and eat." 1 Clarendon presents us with the subsequent picture : — " And which is more wonderful, all this [the Parliamentary Settlement] Avas done and settled within little more than two years, to that degree of perfection that there Avere many build- ings raised for beauty as Avell as use, orderly and regular planta- tions of trees, and raising fences and enclosures throughout the kingdom, purchases made by one from the other at very valuable 1 The Interest of Ireland in its Trade and Wealth, ii. 8G. sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 11 rates, and jointures made upon marriages, and all other con- veyances and settlements executed as in a kingdom at peace within itself, and where no doubt could be made of the validity of titles." 1 At the commencement of the reign of Charles II in 1G60 the three provinces of Ulster, Leinster, and Minister were, with the exception of the remnant which had been left to the Eoman Catholics who had shown a constant good affection to the commonwealth, in the possession of the adventurers and soldiers. The contents of these provinces amounted to sixteen millions of English acres. The restoration upset com- pletely the settlement which had been effected by the Parlia- ment. Whatever legal title the adventurers might have to their lands, inasmuch as their claims rested on Acts 2 of Parliament which had been assented to by Charles I before the war, the soldiers knew that the courts of justice would not recognise their rights which were based on parliamentary ordinances only. But the adventurers and soldiers were well aware that their cause was one and the same. They there- fore united, and after careful consideration they politicly determined to submit their interests to the king. Charles issued his declaration for the settlement of Ireland and for the satisfaction of the several interests on the 30th of November 1660. The Act of Settlement professed to be founded on this declaration, and to have for its object the execution and carrying out of the same. For this purpose, by one sweeping clause, it vested in the king three-fourths of the whole land of Ireland. There can be little doubt that Charles was unfavourably disposed to the Cromwellian occu- pants, the large majority of whom were nonconformists, and who were regarded by him as Republicans. But the king was prudent enough to see that he could not act against 1 Works of Lord Clarendon, 2 vol. edition, ii. 1028. 2 17 Chas. I, ce. 34, 35, 36, 37. 12 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i the wishes of the English Parliament, which would not con- sent to hand back Ireland to the authors of its late evils. The Act of Settlement did not give satisfaction, and its comple- ment, the Act of Explanation, was passed in 1655. This latter Act was essentially a compromise between the several contending parties, and ought to have been regarded as final by them all. 1 For to render such an arrangement possible, the adventurers and soldiers, at the request of the forfeited Eoman Catholic proprietors, voluntarily gave up a third of their lands. The Act was understood by the Protestant owners to be a final settlement. But the Irish claimants never intended to abide by a compromise which they them- selves had proposed. They accepted what the Act gave them, and waited for an opportunity of recovering all. An occasion arrived which to their blind greed appeared to be a propitious one. They grasped at all, and in the attempt they effected the ruin of their country and of themselves. The result of these two Acts was, as Sir William Petty informs us, that the Eoman Catholics obtained possession of about a third of the profitable land of Ireland, viz. 2,280,000 Irish acres or 3,648,000 English acres. If we remember that coarse land was excluded from this computation, and that Petty underestimated the superficial contents of Ireland by four millions of English acres, the Eoman Catholic proprietors must have had in their hands at the accession of James II between five and six millions of English acres. The prosperity which set in with the parliamentary or 1 " The Roman Catholics at last, to end all disputes, proposed that if for the satisfaction of their interests the adventurers and soldiers would part with one-third of the lands respectively enjoyed by them on 7th May 1659 in consideration of their adventures and service, they were ready to agree to it. This proposal was in fine accepted. . . . Thus was the settlement of Ireland at last effected by the common consent of the agents of all the several interests concerned." — Carte's Ormond, ii. 303. See also the report of the English Attorney- General, Sir Heneage Finch, dated 1st February 1671.— Carte, Append. sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 13 Cromwellian Settlement continued during the whole reign of Charles II. We have several glowing accounts of the con- dition of Ireland during this reign, and at the accession of James, drawn by contemporaries and eye-witnesses. But three only shall be referred to here, those of Chief- Justice Keating, Archbishop King, and a gentleman who took refuge in England from the troubles of 1G88. That of the Chief-Justice I shall quote hereafter, when describing the subsequent desolation. The agreement between all these descriptions, though by different hands, is very striking. Archbishop King tells us that at King James's " coming to the crown, Ireland was in a most flourishing condition. Lands were everywhere improved, and rents advanced to near double what they had been a few years before. The kingdom abounded with money ; trade flourished, even to the envy of our neighbours; cities, especially Dublin, increased exceedingly ; gentlemen's seats were built or building every- where ; and parks, enclosures, and other ornaments were carefully promoted, insomuch that many places of the kingdom equalled the improvements of England. . . . And the king's revenue increased proportionably to the kingdom's advance in wealth,- and was every day growing. It amounted to more than three hundred thousand pounds per annum — a sum sufficient to defray all the expenses of the crown, and to return yearly a considerable sum into England, to which this nation had formerly been a constant expense." The account 1 given by the refugee is equally positive. " By the favour of heaven upon the extraordinary fertility of the land, Ireland was under very auspicious circumstances. The Church flourished, trade increased, the cities and towns were every year enlarged with new additions, the country enriched and beautified with houses and plantations ; the farms were loaden with stock, and ready and quick markets 1 Apology for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689. 14 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i there were to vent them. The laws had a free and uninter- rupted course, and a standing army was so far from being a terror that they were the comfort and security of the people. In a word, peace, wealth, and plenty were become universal and epidemical, and all things conspired to a generous emula- tion with our mother and neighbour, England." Such was the condition of Ireland at the accession of James. That of the Eoman Catholic subject was equally favourable. The position of the Irish Eoman Catholic was very different from and far superior to that of his English co- religionist. The penal enactments on the Irish Statute Book were fewer and less severe than those in England. In England every priest who received a convert into the bosom of the Church of Eome was liable to be hanged. In Ireland he incurred no such danger. A doubtful but favourable con- struction was placed on the Irish Act of Supremacy, and enabled Eoman Catholics to fill public offices. " In England," says Macaulay, " no man could hold office, or even earn his livelihood as a barrister or a schoolmaster, without previously taking the oath of supremacy ; but in Ireland a public functionary was not held to be under the necessity of taking that oath unless it were formally tendered to him. It there- fore did not exclude from employment any person whom the Government wished to promote. The sacramental test and the declaration against transubstantiation were unknown; nor was either House of Parliament closed against any religious sect." In truth the state of the Irish Eoman Catholics was much better than that described by Macaulay, and deserves a short consideration. For it will be seen how, when a legal toleration was within their reach, they refused to hold out their hands for it, and disqualified themselves from attaining it by declining to give a proof of their fidelitv and allegiance to the government. Shortly after the restoration of Charles II a petition was sec. l THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 15 presented to the English House of Peers in favour of the Roman Catholics, and a motion was made in the House for a relaxa- tion of the penal laws. It was known that the king was in favour of the proposal, and the Lords were unanimous, " there not appearing one lord in the house who seemed to be un- willing that those laws should be repealed." 1 A committee was appointed to examine and report on the penal statutes. As soon as the committee was appointed, the Catholic peers and their friends were diligent in their attendance for some days, but on a sudden the committee was discontinued and was never subsequently revived. The truth was that the Roman Catholics had quarrelled amongst themselves. Dis- sensions had broken out between their laity, their secular and their regular clergy. Some meetings of a general com- mittee, consisting of their principal lords, the superiors of orders, and the secular priests, were held at Arundel House. Difficulties were started at these meetings respecting the form of an oath or subscription which, it was intended, should be taken by Roman Catholics ; and also respecting a proposi- tion, that none but secular priests under bishops should be allowed in England, and that all regulars should be forbidden the kingdom. There had long been grave disputes and differences among the English Roman Catholics respecting their internal government and the oath of allegiance ; these were revived on this occasion and the general committee was dissolved to meet no more. 2 The prospect of relief afforded by the action of the English House of Lords and the known partiality of Charles en- couraged the Irish Roman Catholic clergy and laity in 1661 1 Clarendon's Life ; Rev. Joseph Berington's Memoirs of Panzani, p. 309. 2 Clarendon's Life; Berington, p. 310. A full account of the dis- sensions which had prevailed for eighty years among the English Roman Catholics is to he found in Berington's Panzani, and also in Sir John Throckmorton's Letters to the Catholic Clergy of England. 16 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i to petition the king for a mitigation of the laws which affected them. The conduct of this clergy l during the rebellion of 1641 had been so mad, reckless, and disloyal that it was felt to be useless to present a petition without a renunciation of the principles on which they had acted during that period. 2 They were advised to incorporate in their petition a declaration of their sentiments respecting the obedience and allegiance which was due from them to the Civil Power. This advice was given in order to get rid of the grand objection to their claims, namely, that the toleration of the Eoman Catholic 1 The Duke of Ormond, who knew them well, describes the Eoman Catholic clergy of these times as " the worst spiritual guides that ever led a poor people to destruction." — Ormond to Orrery. The letter is given in French's Unkinde Desertor, 1676. 2 It would he impossible to overstate the crimes and follies of the Irish Eoman Catholic bishops and clergy during the rebellion. The following are some and only some of them : — 1. The Synod of Armagh, within six months after the breaking out of the insurrection, pronounced it to he lawful and pious. 2. On the 10th of May 1642, that is within eight months of the same period, a general synod declared it to be just and lawful. 3. At the last synod it was resolved to send envoys to the Pope, Emperor, and King of France to solicit assistance. 4. The hishops and clergy opposed the peace of 1646 with the king, excommunicated their own commissioners who negotiated it, and forhade the celebration of divine service in all towns and cities adhering to it. 5. They deposed the Supreme Council and assumed the govern- ment themselves. 6. They opposed the cessation of arms with Inchiquin on the ground that he was a heretic, and excommunicated its adherents. 7. They excommunicated the king's lord-lieutenant and drove him from the country. 8. They applied to the Pope to become protector of Ireland ; on the Pope's refusal they made a treaty with the Duke of Lorraine, vesting royal authority in him with the title of Protector Royal of Ireland. 9. They veered round from their former protestations of loyalty and favoured the progress of the parliamentary arms. They refused to excommunicate those who joined Cromwell or helped him with contributions or supplies. Hence the open markets, and the pin- visions sold freely in Cromwell's camp ; a state of things which ( larlyle attributes to Cromwell's justice and ready money. sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 17 religion was inconsistent with the safety of a Protestant State. Accordingly Sir Richard Belling, 1 formerly secretary to the Kilkenny Confederation, drew up what was afterwards known as the Loyal Eemonstrance of the Eoman Catholic Clergy of Ireland. For the purpose of drawing up this docu- ment Belling made use of three negative propositions con- tained in a declaration signed by a great number of English Eoman Catholics and presented to the Parliament in 1647. 2 1 This was the gentleman who, when envoy of the confederation, induced the Pope to send Rinuccini to Ireland. 2 " The Roman Catholics of this nation, taking into consideration the twelve proposals of his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax [that the penal statutes should be repealed, and that the Roman Catholics should enjoy liberty of conscience by grant from the Parliament] lately pub- lished this present year 1647, and how prejudicial and destructive it might be to them at this time tacitly to permit an opinion (by some conceived) of an inconsistency in their religion with the civil govern- ment of this kingdom by reason of some doctrines and positions scandalously laid upon them, which might thereby draw on persons that cannot conform themselves to the religion here established an incapacity to receive and be partakers of a general benefit intended for the ease of tender consciences, have thought it convenient to endeavour the just vindication of their integrities therein. And to remove the scandal out of all the minds and opinions of moderate and charitable persons, do declare the negative to these propositions following : — "I " That the Pope or Church hath power to absolve any person or persons whatsoever from his or their obedience to the Civil Govern- ment established in this nation. "II " That it is lawful by the Pope's or Church's command or dispensa- tion to kill, destroy, or otherwise injure any person or persons what- soever, because he or they are accused or condemned, censured or excommunicated for error, schism, or heresy. "Ill " That it is lawful in itself or by the Pope's dispensation to break either word or oath with any person abovesaid, under pretence of their being heretics." — Walsh, History of the Remonstrance, pp. 522, 523. This declaration was condemned the following year by Innocent X, and its subscribers censured by a particular decree. — Throckmorton, 1st Letter, p. 145. C 18 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i Changing the words as required by the new circumstances of the case, Belling followed closely the expressions and inten- tions of the English petition. The Irish Remonstrance acknowledged the king to be the supreme lord and rightful sovereign of Ireland ; that the clergy were bound to obey him in all civil and temporal affairs, and to pay him loyalty and obedience notwithstanding any sentence or declaration of the Pope ; it disclaimed all foreign power, papal or princely, spiritual or temporal, that should pretend to free them from this obligation ; and de- clared that all princes of what religion soever were indepen- dent under God ; and that it was impious and against the Word of God to maintain that any private subject might kill the prince though of a different religion. A copy of this Remonstrance was sent to London and there signed by twenty-three Eoman Catholic ecclesiastics and ninety-seven of the Irish nobility and gentry who were in that city. It was then presented to the king, and was received most graciously by him. As the prospect was held out to the Eoman Catholics of Ireland of obtaining relief from the penal laws, it became desirable to know whether the Kemonstrance represented the real opinions of their clergy on the question of allegiance and obedience to the Civil Power. If it did, there could be no objection to an acknowledgment by that body of their loyalty to the established government. If, on the other hand, it did not, all further discussion was at an end, and the State could only come to the conclusion that both the Roman Catholic clergy and the laity, over whom they exercised a dominant influence, were unfit to be admitted into the constitution. To prevent all excuses and subterfuges, and to give an oppor- tunity for a free and fair discussion of the subject of civil obedience, the Duke of Ormond allowed a national Synod of the Roman Catholic clergy to be convened at Dublin. The Synod sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 19 met on the 11th of June 1666, and continued its sittings till the 25th of the same month. But it soon appeared that the Irish clergy still clung to a dogma which has since been given up by the Koman Catholic world; namely, that the Pope has the power of deposing kings and of dispensing with the allegiance due to them from their subjects. The Synod de- clined to sign the Loyal Eemonstrance, and drew up on the 16th of June what they called " a remonstrance and protesta- tion of their loyalty." This latter document contained no denial of the Pope's deposing power, and when read by the light of that doctrine was evasive and offered no guarantee of their loyalty and obedience to the Civil Power. No sooner had it become known at Eome that it was pro- posed by the Eoman Catholic clergy of Ireland to present a declaration of their loyalty to the Civil Power than the thunders of the Vatican were heard. The Nuncio at Brussels, De Vecchiis, who then exercised a superintendence over Irish religious affairs, condemned in July 1662 the Piemonstrance on the ground that it denied the Pope's deposing power. 1 In the same month Cardinal Barberini, in a letter addressed to the noblemen and gentry of Ireland, 2 declared that the Eemonstrance was a violation of the Catholic faith. And shortly before the meeting of the Synod in 1666, Eospigliosi, then Nuncio at Brussels and afterwards Cardinal, wrote to the Irish bishops and clergy that subscription to the Eemon- strance would be grievous and hurtful to the Catholic religion. 3 In thus condemning a declaration of their loyalty by the Eoman Catholics of Ireland, the Eoman court and its ministers continued a policy on which they had long acted. In 1646 their own Nuncio, Einuccini, on an occasion when he wanted to gain the Irish nobility and gentry to his designs, 1 Throckmorton's Letters to the Catholic Clergy, etc., p. 154. 2 Ad prcestantes vims Hibernice. — Walsh, p. 17. 3 Walsh, p. 633. 20 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i made a speech in which he boasted of his fidelity to the Koyal cause. He was at once reprimanded from Borne for having used such expressions. Cardinal Pamphili, the Pope's Secretary of State, wrote to him in these words : " The Holy See never can by any positive act approve of the civil allegiance of Catholic subjects to a heretical prince. From this maxim of the Holy See have arisen many difficulties and disputes in England about oaths of allegiance. And His Holiness's displeasure is the greater because you have left the original of your speech in the hands of the Catholic confederates, which, if published, will furnish heretics with arguments against the Pope's power over here- tical princes, seeing that his minister exhorts the Catholics of Ireland to allegiance to a heretical king." 1 Again in December of the same year Pamphili informed Einuccini " That it had been the constant and uninterrupted practice of the Holy See never to allow its ministers to make or to consent to any public edict of Catholic subjects for the defence of the crown and person of a heretical prince ; that his conduct furnished pretences to the enemies of the Holy See to reflect upon her as deviating from the maxims of sound policy to which she had ever yet adhered ; and that the Pope desired that he would not by any public act show that he knew or consented to any declaration of allegiance which Irish Catholics might for political reasons be compelled or be willing to make to the king." 2 It is now admitted by all Eoman Catholics that both the oath of allegiance drawn up by James I in England in 1G05, 1 Carte's Ormond, i. 578 ; O'Conor's Historical Address, pt. ii. p. 415, and the authorities there quoted. On receipt of this letter, Rinuccini, pretending that lie had lost his own copy of the speech, applied to Lord Mountgarret, President of the Supreme Council, for the ori- ginal, and returned in its stead a mutilated copy from which the offen- sive passage was omitted. — Carte's Ormond; O'Conor's Historical A ddress. 2 O'Conor's Historical Address and Hutton's Bimiccini, p. 580. SEC. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 21 and the Irish Remonstrance of 1662, are perfectly free from any objection, and contain nothing inconsistent with their faith or with their duty to the head of their church. 1 James knew that some Roman Catholics whose civil principles were sound and loyal seriously objected to the oath of supremacy. He therefore drew up a political test in the oath of allegiance to which it was thought all Catholics would cheerfully sub- scribe. 2 When this oath was first proposed it " was eagerly and generally taken by many of the secular clergy, of the Benedictines, and of the lay Catholics," 3 and also by the Arch- 1 "The instrument [the Irish Remonstrance] is now acknowledged by Catholics to be perfectly free from objection." — Throckmorton's Letters to the Catholic Clergy, p. 155. " James II, when Duke of York, took the oath of allegiance, and intimated his intention of enforcing it when king." — Butler's Memoirs of the English Catholics, ii. 220. " The apostolic delegate, Blackwell, in the reign of James I, took the oath himself and advised the English Catholics to take it." — lb. p. 211. " Why was this oath condemned ? I defy any Catholic to find anything in it repugnant to his religion." — Rev. Chas. O'Conor's Historical Address, pt. ii. p. 160. " A slight attention to the nature of the condemned oath would have convinced them [the Catholic laity] that nothing by it was de- manded of them which as subjects they ought to refuse, and that nothing was renounced in it which affected their religion." — Throck- morton, 2d Letter, p. 91. Butler says it was a lamentable error to refuse the oath. — Memoirs of the English Catholics, ii. 203. "The oath accordingly when tendered was taken by many Catholics, laity and clergy, and a ray of returning happiness gleamed around them. But a cloud soon gathered on the seven hills ; for it could not be that a test, the main object of which was an explicit re- jection of the deposing power, should not raise vapours there."' — Rev. Joseph Berington's Panzani, p. 75. Father Walsh advised all Roman Catholics to take the oath of allegiance and to sign the Remonstrance. " May you . . . offer that you will at the choice of the Parliament either take the oath of alle- giance . . . or sign the loyal formulary." — Address to the Catholics, etc. 2 3 Jas. I, c. 4, § 15. James's oath is generally known as that of allegiance, the oath of Elizabeth as that of supremacy. 3 Throckmorton, p. 134. 22 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i priest Blackwell, 1 the apostolic delegate in England, who advised his flock to take it. There was at last, after so many years, a prospect of a modus vivcndi being established between the English Eoman Catholics and the Government ; a recon- ciliation between them and the State under the protection of which they lived. But the bright scene was soon clouded. Paul V in a brief of the 23d of October 1606 condemned the oath as containing " many things adverse to faith and salva- tion." The authenticity of this brief was generally doubted, and the Eoman Catholics continued to manifest their allegiance. On this a second brief followed in 1607, which established the validity of the former and enforced submission. In 1608 a third brief was issued repeating the condemnation of the oath, and ordering all priests who had taken it, and did not retract within a limited time, to be deprived of their faculties. 2 Finally in 1626 a fourth condemnation was published by Urban VIII. 3 The same unhappy policy was again adopted in 1662, and the Irish Eemonstrance was also con- demned. Protestants are too apt in their criticisms to confound the essential tenets of the Eoman Catholic faith with the behaviour and policy of the governors and directors of the Eomish Church, and Eoman Catholics naturally resent judgments which mix up divine things with the consequences of human frailty. But the political action of individuals, whether Popes or Cardinals, is open to the world, and may be praised 1 The last of the Marian bishops, Watson, died in 1584. Con- trary to the wish of the English Catholics, who desired the appointment of bishops, a new office and title were created. Blackwell was made archpriest and superior over the clergy of England and Scotland in 1598. Blackwell was deposed in 1008 for taking the oath of allegiance and recommending the Catholics of England to take it. See Throckmorton's Letters and Berington's Memoirs of Panzani. 2 llirockmorton, pp. 135, 136. 3 This was the Pope who, as Cardinal Newman informs us, de- clared that Rome bewailed with "tears of blood" the conduct of the Papacy towards England. Video meliora yroboquc, deteriora sequoi: sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 23 or censured by all, either Catholics or Protestants. It is the unquestionable duty of every subject, and of every class of subjects, when called upon by the Supreme Power in the State, to give such assurance of his or their allegiance as that power may require, either by an oath or solemn declaration, provided there is nothing in the oath or declaration which is opposed to his or their faith and conscience. There was nothing contrary to Catholic faith or conscience in the oath of allegiance or in the Irish Piemonstrance. Yet the Roman Catholics of England were forbidden to take the oath of allegiance ; those of Ireland were prohibited from signing the Remonstrance. The authors of the briefs against the English oath and of the prohibitions against signing the Irish Remonstrance forbade the reception of the Roman Catholics of England and Ireland into our constitution, and shut the gates of admission in the face of millions of faithful and obedient believers who looked to them for guidance. These rulers and councillors, to maintain an ambitious claim which had no better foundation than the arrogance of former pontiffs and the " weak concessions of mortals," prevented a reconcilia- tion of the members of their church with the governments under which they lived as subjects. Unwilling to give up an old and rusty weapon which had been opposed with success in every kingdom of Europe, and which they have since abandoned, the vicars of Him, whose kingdom is not of this world, left the Roman Catholics of these countries exposed to laws necessarily severe. 1 For the subject who refuses to give guarantees of his loyalty is justly suspect as 1 " And Paul himself could sit undisturbed in the Vatican, hear- ing that men were imprisoned and that blood was poured out in support of a claim which had no better foundation, surely he knew, than the ambition of his predecessors and the weak concessions of mortals ; he could sit and view the scene, and not in pity at least wish to redress their sufferings by releasing them from the injunctions of his decree." — Rev. Joseph Berington's Panzani, p. 86. 24 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i an enemy, and justly condemned to exclusion from the full rights of citizenship. Notwithstanding the refusal of the Irish bishops and clergy to give a pledge of their loyalty and obedience to the State in all civil matters, the Roman Catholics of Ireland enjoyed from 1660 to the accession of James II a toleration which, when compared with the contemporaneous condition of the Protestant subjects under the Catholic Governments of Europe, was a state of perfect freedom. Archbishop King tells us that, when James came to the throne, there was " a free liberty of conscience by connivance though not by law." But as the evidence of this prelate is sometimes called in question, Roman Catholic testimony will be adduced. Father Walsh, writing in 1672, informs us that Charles II effectu- ally countermanded " the winds and tempests of persecution throughout Ireland." l In his speech to the Synod in June 1666 the same ecclesiastic reminded the assembled fathers, who must have been acquainted with the facts, " of the ceas- ing of persecution, release of prisoners, general connivance at the exercise of their religion through all provinces and parts of Ireland, even within the walls of corporate towns and garrisons." 2 In the same month eighteen Catholic priests presented a petition or letter of expostulation to the Synod, advising the signature of the Remonstrance, in which these words occur : " Is it not further as manifestly apparent how graciously that instrument [the Remonstrance] after the sig- nature of it was received by His Majesty ? How immediately the persecution in this kingdom ceased by His Majesty's express commands. Nay, how ever since both people and clergy of our communion have enjoyed the great tranquillity 1 Father Walsh informs us that at this time the number of secular priests was more than a thousand, and of the regulars eight hundred. Cardinal Moran, in his Life of Archbishop Plunket, estimates the seculars at a thousand and the regulars at six hundred. 2 History of the Remonstrance, p. 654. sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 25 and freedom in point of exercising our religion and functions which we have so gladly seen and which we so thankfully acknowledge to be still continued to us, yea, in a higher measure enjoyed by us at this present than we could almost have not long since either believed or hoped we should live to see." 1 In 1670 the Lord Lieutenant received special in- structions to favour and protect the remonstrant, that is the loyal, priests. 2 Archbishop Plunket writes in the same year to the Cardinal Protector at Borne : " The Viceroy of this kingdom shows himself favourable to the Catholics, not only in consequence of his natural mildness of disposition, but still more on account of his being acquainted with the benign intentions of His Majesty in reference to his Catholic sub- jects." 3 In another letter of the same year, addressed to the new pontiff, Clement X, the same prelate says : " We experi- ence in this kingdom, Holy Father, the benign influence of the King of England in favour of the Catholics, so that all enjoy great liberty and ease. Ecclesiastics may be publicly known, and are permitted to exercise their functions without any impediment." 4 When the Duke of Ormond resumed the viceroyalty in 1677, Dr. Plunket "often speaks of his govern- ment as peaceful and mild." 5 Such was the general tenor of the conduct of the Government towards the Irish Soman Catholics, though it was sometimes disturbed for short in- tervals on occasions of national excitement, such, for example, as that which was consequent on the so-called Popish plot. But the best test of the toleration granted to the Boman Catholics may be derived from their own conduct. Did they show by the humility of their proceedings that they con- sidered themselves as oppressed and as excluded from freedom of action? Did their bishops and clergy refrain from the 1 History of the Remonstrance, p. 698. 2 Life of Archbishop Plunket, by Archbishop (now Cardinal) Moran, p. 48. 3 lb. p. 51. 4 lb. p. 52. 5 lb. p. 55. 26 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i open exercise of their functions, and was their carriage that of those who felt themselves to be persecuted ? At or about this time it was death, or what was worse than death, the galleys, for a Protestant divine to celebrate the offices of his religion in the Catholic countries of Europe. 1 The conduct of the Eoman Catholic ecclesiastics in Ireland presents a lively contrast to the state of things on the Continent. Within three months after his arrival from Borne in 1670 Archbishop Plunket " solemnised two synods of his clergy, and moreover convened and presided at a general synod of the Irish bishops, which was held in Dublin ; and before the month of September in the same year we find him summon- ing a provincial council of Ulster, and enacting many salutary decrees for the correction of abuses and the advancement of ecclesiastical discipline in that province." 2 In 1678 the same prelate convoked another provincial synod at Ardpatrick, where decrees were made and enactments passed. 3 In 1670 Peter Talbot, titular Archbishop of Dublin, appeared before the Privy Council in his episcopal habits, a thing of which there had been no precedent since the Eeformation. On another occasion the same archbishop applied to the Lord Lieutenant for the loan of some of the State hangings, silver candlesticks, plate, and other utensils, for the purpose of mak- ing use of them at the celebration of high mass. The request was complied with. 4 But this is not all: we are informed by Archbishop Plunket, in a letter to the Nuncio in the year 1673, that the same Peter Talbot, " during the past four years, waged an open war against the Duke of Ormond, who 1 This subject is more fully treated in the following chapter. 2 Moran's Life of Archbishop Plunket, p. 56. 3 lb. p. 58. 4 The loan was accompanied with a complimentary message from the Lord Lieutenant's secretary, Sir Ellis Leighton, " that he hoped to have high mass at Christ Church at Christmas." — Secret Consults, etc. ; State Tracts, iii. 620 ; Leland, iii. 462. sec. i THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 27 is the most powerful subject of His Majesty in this kingdom." 1 Let us imagine, if we can, what would have been the fate of a Protestant ecclesiastic in Austria, Spain, France, or Savoy, who would at this time have opposed, not a powerful ex- viceroy, but even a parish officer. If we consider this, we shall be able to guess at the difference between the position of a Eoman Catholic in Ireland and that of a Protestant in these Catholic kingdoms at this period. It is absurd and in the highest degree ungrateful for Irish Eoman Catholic writers to speak of the conduct of the Government as oppressive at a time when the Protestant subjects of Catholic kingdoms were hunted like wolves or mad dogs, and persecuted, not as being dangerous to the safety of the State, but for holding religious opinions different from those professed by their rulers. If these partisans were acquainted with comparative history, they would thankfully acknowledge that their co-religionists enjoyed at this time in Ireland a toleration which was un- known to Catholic governments, and which was simply marvellous considering the spirit of the times and the dis- affection of the subjects to whom it was extended — a dis- affection which was so soon again to manifest itself, for the second time within forty years, at the expense of the ruin of the country and at the cost of a hundred thousand lives. The condition and circumstances of the Eoman Catholic laity at the accession of James II were as favourable as the position of the clergy. Archbishop King tells us that great numbers of them had acquired considerable estates " either by traffic or by the law, or by other arts and industries." And Colonel Laurence, writing in 1682, speaks strongly of their general prosperity at the time. " For," says he, " although a considerable number of them may be of des- perate fortunes, being branches of those ruined families sequestered for former rebellions, to whom war is the best 1 Moran's Life of Archbishop Plunket, p. 88. 28 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i trade and revenge desirable wages — if they gain nothing they cannot lose much. But this is not the case of the body of them. There are many of their nobility 1 and gentry enjoy plentiful estates with the favour and countenance of their prince, some of whom never quitted the interest of the Crown in the last twelve years' war, and now reap the profit of it. And multitudes of the commons are wealthy merchants in our cities and rich farmers in the country,/who, although they be strict Papists, yet are friendly and good neighbours and just and honest dealers, who have as much reason to dread a war as the English themselves." 2 1 At the accession of James II the number of the Catholic peers was about forty. 2 Interest of Ireland in its Trade and JVealth, ii. 89. When Colonel Laurence published this book he had been thirty -three years in Ireland. SECTION II THE PREPARATION FOR THE PARLIAMENT 1 It was in a country so circumstanced, rapidly advancing in prosperity, 2 and in which the Eoman Catholic subject enjoyed a toleration which was absolute freedom when compared with the position of Protestants under the Catholic governments of Europe, that the king, Tyrconnel, and the Irish priesthood entered upon a conspiracy which was to end in the desolation of the island. The old attempts were to be renewed, and the old game of 1641, which had ended so disastrously, was to be played over again. But the conditions of the game were now altered. A king of Great Britain and his secret council 3 had joined the conspiracy. James had 1 Portions of this and the following section appeared in a pamphlet which I published anonymously in Dublin, 1886. 2 " This kingdom improves visibly, and it is improved beyond what could have been reasonably hoped for in the space of twenty years. Nor can anything but a civil war or some other of God's national judgments stop the career of prosperity it is in." — Ormond to the King, 1681 ; Carte, Append. 3 It is from James's own statement that we have the most certain evidence of the existence of this secret council. " He [Sunderland] persuaded the king to appoint some of the most considerable Catholics to meet at certain times either at his office or at Mr. Chiffinch's to consult of matters relating to religion, and he pretending to be much inclined to and at the last professing himself a Catholic, was not only admitted, but soon had the chief direction of this secret juncto ; it was a sort of committee from the Cabinet Council itself, whither by degrees he drew all business, and by consequence made himself umpire of the whole transactions relating to the Government." — Clarke's Life of James II, ii. 74. 30 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i found that his attack on the liberties and constitution of England was not as likely to succeed as he had once hoped. He was therefore resolved, as he informed some of his friends and followers who began to doubt the result of his schemes, to provide for himself and them " a sure sanctuary and retreat in Ireland if all those endeavours should be blasted in England which he had made for their security, and of whose success he had not yet reason to despair." 1 He determined there- fore to exalt the power and influence of the Eoman Catholic body in Ireland, and to destroy the Protestant or English interest in that country, in order that he and his party might have a refuge or fortified camp to which they could retreat, and from which they could either negotiate or defend them- selves with the aid of France. To carry out this scheme James selected Tyrconnel as his instrument. Though Tyr- connel's appointment was opposed by every moderate English Eoman Catholic about the king, 2 James insisted on his nomination. " There is work to be done in Ireland," said he, " which no Englishman will do." Tyrconnel had long been the agent at the English Court of that Irish party which desired the repeal of the Acts of Settlement and the restoration of the Eoman Catholics to the forfeited estates, a scheme which was dreaded by the English Catholics as dangerous and revolutionary. He was supported 1 Secret Consults, etc.; State Tracts, iii. 61G. "Jacques II des le commencement de son regne, avoit fait visiter toutes les places mili- taires de cette ile par le lord Darmouth, grand maitre de l'artillerie d'Angleterre. Son rapport, qui est sous nos ycux, prouve le dessein forme d'arracher la preponderance aux Anglois et de former en Irlande un systeme de defense pour une hypothesis qui s'est realisee ; la necessite pour le Roi de se refugier parmi les Irlandois Catholiques." " Les desseins du Roi sur l'Irlande embrassoient l'espace de cinq amines, le temps lui parassait necessaire pour fortifier le Royaume, et pour y preparer un asyle, independant de son successeur, aux Catholiques." — M azure, Revolution de 1688, ii. 115, 287. 2 Lord Bellasis said at the Council Board, "That fellow, Dick Talbot, is fool and madman enough to ruin ten kingdoms." sec. ii TIIK ililSIl PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 31 at the Court by the Queen and Father Petre, though opposed by the Privy Council and the House of Commons. This latter assembly had even petitioned Charles II in 1673 to dismiss him from all command, civil or military, and to forbid his appearance at Court. If but a part of what lias been said of i his man be true, he was a prodigy of wickedness. Some virtues at least enter into our conception of a political leader, but Tyrconnel appears to have been deficient in every quality required. There was neither conscience, veracity, nor pru- dence in the man. He was not even faithful to the family of the master to whom he owed everything. 1 If James had had the feelings of a man, he would have detested one who had attempted to blacken the good fame of his first wife. But Tyrconnel was the chosen leader of the Irish priesthood, and by their influence, backed by the king's knowledge of Tyrcon- nel's wish to destroy the Protestant interest in Ireland, James was induced to employ him, first as commander of the forces in that country, and afterwards as Lord Deputy. The recom- mendation of the Irish priesthood in favour of Tyrconnel is still extant. 2 It was found amongst the papers of Tyrrell, titular Bishop of Clogher, and secretary to Tyrconnel. An extract will show how highly Tyrconnel and his services were valued by the Irish clergy : " And since of all others the Earl of Tyrconnel did first espouse and chiefly maintain, these twenty -five years last past, the cause of your poor oppressed lioman Catholic clergy, and is now the only subject of your Majesty under whose fortune and popularity in this kingdom we dare cheerfully and with assurance owli our loyalty and assert your Majesty's interest, do make it our humble suit to your Majesty, that you will be pleased to lodge your authority over us in his hands, to the terror of the 1 Tyrconnel made overturns to France for casting off all connection with England, and, in the event of James's death, for placing the crown of Ireland on his own head. — Mazure, Revolution de 1688, ii. 287. 2 King's State of the Protestants, Append. 32 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chai>. i factious and encouragement of your faithful subjects here. Since his dependence on your Majesty is so great, that we doubt not but that they will receive him with such acclama- tions as the long -captivated Israelites did their redeemer Mordecai. And since your Majesty ill glory and power does equal the mighty Ahasuerus, and the virtues and beauty of your Queen is as true a parallel to his adored Hester, we humbly beseech she may be heard as our great patroness against that Haman x whose pride and ambition of being honoured as his master may have hitherto kept us in slavery." We may well wonder that the Irish clergy should choose such a representative and leader. However this may be, it is certain that they and Tyrconnel, with the assent and con- currence of James, began a conspiracy against the liberties, property, and Church of the Protestants in Ireland. The aim of the conspiracy was threefold — Eoman Catholic ascendency in this country, and the exclusion of Protestants from all civil and military employment ; the complete separation of Ireland from England ; and the restoration of the land to the Irish. The events subsequent to the commencement of the year 1685, and up to the landing of William, the conduct of James's Irish Government, and the legislation of the Irish Parliament, leave no doubt of the existence and aims of this conspiracy. The means intended to effect these aims were, first, to get possession of the whole civil, military, and judicial power in the nation ; secondly, to master the representation ; and thirdly, to call a Parliament which should give effect to their policy. If there are minds so constituted as to remain unconvinced by the logic of facts and conduct, at least they cannot refuse credence to written testimony. Among the letters of the same Tyrrell there was found one addressed to the king, in which the programme of the conspirators was clearly explained, and this programme was afterwards literally 1 Orinond. sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 33 carried out. The letter is long, and in parts imperfect ; but sufficient remains to indicate its scope and meaning. 1 The paragraph which refers to the means to be adopted for work- ing out the ends of the conspiracy is here given. The writer, after recommending the king to promote Catholics to " the most eminent and profitable stations," and expressing a fear that the Protestants in his English army would be inclined to fight for the king, Parliament, and Protestant religion against the king as Papist, his Popish cabals, and popery, goes on to say : " To prevent which, as matters now stand, there is but one sure and safe expedient, that is, to purge without delay the rest of your Irish army, increase and make it wholly Catholic ; raise and train a Catholic militia there ; place Catholics at the helm of that kingdom ; issue out quo warrantos against all the corporations in it ; put all employs, civil as well as military, into Catholic hands. This done, call a Parliament of loyal " — here the document is illegible for a few lines. But the sketch is complete, and we shall soon see that the line of action recommended in this letter was at once put into operation. The letter was sent to James in August 168G, while Lord Clarendon was Lord Lieutenant, and Tyrconnel Commander-in-Chief in Ireland. The first step taken in prosecution of the conspiracy was 1. The Disarming of the Protestants The Duke of Ormond, when Lord Lieutenant in the years 1662-69, had raised and armed a body of twenty thousand men as a militia, to protect the English settlers and to restrain the banditti which then infested the country. After the rebellion of Monmouth in England, under the pretence that this militia was well affected to his claims, an order came from England, while Lord Granard and Archbishop 1 The letter is given in the Appendix to King's State of the Pro- testants. D 34 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i Boyle were Lords Justices, 1 that its arms should be taken and deposited in magazines in each of the counties. The carrying out of the order was entrusted to Tyrconnel, and the militia was disarmed. But this was not sufficient. It was resolved to disarm all the Protestants, and to deprive them even of their private weapons, which were necessary for the defence of themselves or their houses. Accordingly " it was given out that if any arms were reserved under any pretence, such as that they were their own and not belonging to the public, it would be regarded as a proof of disaffection." 2 The terror inspired by this menace was so great that the Protestants delivered up the arms and weapons which they had bought with their own money and for their own protec- tion. Though the settlers were obliged by the terms of their patents of plantation to keep arms in readiness for the king's service, and the country was in a very disturbed condition, they were deprived of all means of defence, and left " without any one weapon in their houses, and the Irish were all armed." 3 While this was being done, and the Protestants disarmed, the native Irish were, on the other hand, permitted by Tyrconnel to retain their weapons. We have in Lord Clarendon's letters an account of a warm debate which took place in the Privy Council on this matter. Many of its members — for the Protestants had not yet seceded from it — complained of the state of the country, and of the English settlers being left totally defenceless among a peasantry who were hostile to the Protestants and unwilling to aid them when attacked. The Lords Justices who were present declared that they had given orders to collect the arms of the militia only, but admitted that those of private persons also 1 Lord Granard and the Chancellor, Archbishop Boyle, were Lords Justices between the recall of the Duke of Onnond in 1685 and the arrival of Lord Clarendon in January 1G8G. 2 Secret Consults, etc. :! Clarendon to Lord Rochester, Clarendon's Gorr. i. 217. sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 35 had been taken, under the pretence of disarming the militia. One of them, Lord Granard, added that this was done, he knew not " by what officiousness." We know by what and by whose officiousness it was done. This illegal measure was undertaken by Tyrconnel, and accomplished by him alone. The natural consequences of this measure ensued. No sooner had the English settlers been disarmed than the banditti and rapparees issued from their haunts and com- menced their outrages against the Protestants. Persons were set upon and dangerously wounded in the open day. 1 Houses were attacked, and the flocks and herds of the English driven away or destroyed. Crimes were so multiplied that Special Commissions had to be issued to clear the jails ; 2 and, worst of all, the officers and soldiers of the army, which Tyrconnel was then engaged in filling up with Catholics, contributed to the outrages and the general disorganisation of the kingdom. They even interfered with the revenue officers in the discharge of their duties, and prevented the collection of the king's taxes. 3 The historian 4 tells us that these " new arms in new hands were made use of as might have been expected. The soldiers harassed the inhabitants, and lived upon them at free quarters. Tyrconnel, instead of punishing these offences, encouraged them." When soldiers were taken red-handed in the commission of crime, they were claimed by their officers from the civil power ; and, in con- sequence of this conduct of the officers, magistrates refused to take examinations where any of the army were concerned. 5 1 Clarendon to Sunderland, Clarendon's Coir. i. 215, 230. 2 Clarendon to Sunderland, Corr. ii. 106. 3 Clarendon to Rochester, Corr. ii. 4. 4 Dalrymple. 5 " Some [the soldiers] are taken in committing felonies four or five miles from the town and carried before the next justice of the peace. . . . These things some of the officers are much dissatisfied at, thinking that men once in the king's pay must upon no pretence be taken hold of by the civil magistrate." — Clarendon to Sunderland, 18th December 1686. "The justices of the peace are very unwilling 36 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY char i Lord Clarendon complains of the excesses even of the officers, and mentions an extraordinary outrage committed by one of them, Lord Brittas, on the High Sheriff of a county. We give it in his own words, and the instance will show to what a state the country had been reduced. " The High Sheriff of the county sent an injunction out of Chancery to my Lord Brittas, to quit the possession of another man with whom his lordship has a suit. My lord beat the man most terribly who brought the injunction, and not being satisfied therewith, he took a file of his men with him, found out where the sheriff himself was, dragged him into the streets, and caused him to be beaten most cruelly, saying he would teach him how to carry himself towards the officers of the king's army." If such an out- rage could he committed with impunity l against a high public officer, it is easy to imagine the condition of private persons. These proceedings spread universal terror and alarm, and their effects soon showed themselves in the decline of the country. Trade and agriculture decayed rapidly ; landlords hastened to sell their estates for whatever could be got; merchants closed their accounts, and withdrew themselves and their stocks to England ; farmers threw up their leases ; manufactories were shut up; 2 the revenue declined; an to take examinations where any of the army are concerned, though I have signified to them that they need not fear doing their duty, espe- cially where the lives of any of His Majesty's suhjects are concerned." Clarendon to Sunderland, Clarendon's Gorr., ii. 137. 1 This crime was not punished. Lord Brittas apologised for it to the Lord Lieutenant. This ruffian afterwards sat in the Dublin Parliament. Two equally shameful outrages are told of Lord Clancarty, another of Tyrconnel's officers. — Secret Consults, etc. 2 "The other day, my Lord Chief Justice being with me and dis- coursing from his observations in bis late circuit of the great decay of the inland manufactories and the damp that seemed to be upon the minds of the trading people and husbandmen, I said to him, etc. . . . I can myself give one instance of a man in the county of Cork who, about eighteen months since, had forty looms at work, and about six months since he put them all off ; has given his landlord warning, for he was a great renter, that he will leave his lands. There is another sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 37 exodus, on a scale hitherto happily unknown in these islands, began. As early as June 1686 Lord Clarendon writes : " It is impossible to tell you the alterations that are grown in men within this month ; but the last week — for I am very inquisitive to be informed of those particulars — one hundred and twenty people went in one ship from hence to Chester, and multitudes are preparing, from all parts of the kingdom, to be gone as fast as they can get in their debts and dispose of their stocks. Great sums of money are brought to town, and more is daily coming up to be sent away ; and in regard the exchange is so high, for it is risen twenty shillings in £100 within these four days, and that no returns, even at these high rates, can be gotten into England, they are en- deavouring to remit their money into France and Holland, to draw it from thence hereafter at leisure. In the meantime, there is no money in the country, and the native commodities yield nothing. The king's quit -rents and chimney -money come in very slowly. To distrain signifies nothing or very little, for the collector cannot sell the distress when he has taken it, that is, nobody will buy it." 1 And, again, in August of the same year : " Those traders who have got home their effects have withdrawn themselves and their stocks out of the kingdom, which is undeniable matter of fact. I can name several who paid the king many thousands a year to his duty who are absolutely gone, and left no factors to carry on their trade, by which means several thousands of natives, who were employed in spinning and carding of wool/are discharged and have no work. There are likewise multitudes of farmers and renters gone to England, who, though they were not men of estates, yet the improvements of the country and the in the province of Munster, likewise, who keeps five hundred families at work. This man, sending to a tenant for £30 which he owed him, was presently accused by the said tenant of having spoken treasonable words." — Clarendon to his brother, 30th May 1686. 1 Clarendon to Rochester, Corr. i. 464. 38 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i inland trade was chiefly carried on by them." In a word, the desolation which afterwards, within a few months, overtook the land was already settling down upon it ; and Ireland, which only two years ago was, as Chief Justice Keating called it, " the most improved and most improving spot of ground in Europe," was fast becoming a desert. Most of the English inhabitants fled, and art, industry, and capital fled with them. 2. The Exclusion of Protestants from the Army The army of Ireland, at the accession of James, consisted of about seven thousand men, " as loyal and as cordial to the king's service as any one could be ; both officers and soldiers had been inured to it for many years. They looked on him as their master and father, entirely depending on him, and ex- pecting nothing from anybody else. When Monmouth's and Argyle's rebellion called for their assistance to suppress them, no people in the world could show more cheerfulness or forwardness than they did. Most of the officers of this army had been so zealous to serve the king that they had by his permission and encouragement bought their employments ; many of them had laid out their whole fortunes and con- tracted debts to purchase a command." 1 Tyrconnel, who was not able to put a regiment through its exercise, 2 came to Ireland as general of the forces in 1686, with blank commis- sions and with instructions to admit Roman Catholics into the army, which up to this time was exclusively Protestant. These instructions of the king implied no more than that all subjects indiscriminately should be admitted to his service. Tyrconnel himself admitted to Lord Clarendon that such was their meaning, luit his declarations that no distinction should 'O' 1 King. 2 "Lord Tyrconnel himself, after all his infallible skill, cannot draw up a regiment, which is visible here." — Clarendon to Rochester, Corr. i. 436. sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 39 be made between Roman Catholic and Protestant differed greatly from the proceedings which at once commenced, for Tyrconnel was acquainted with the real wishes of the king. 1 Within a short time after his arrival, between two and three hundred officers were removed without any reason assigned. These gentlemen, who had bought their commissions, and many of whom had shed their blood for the crown, were dismissed without allowance or compensation. The letters of Lord Clarendon are full of the many hard cases of these officers, whom he knew to be good soldiers and loyal subjects. For some he pleaded with Tyrconnel in vain, and others he recommended to the king and his friends in England. The majority 2 went abroad, and many of them took service in Holland, thus swelling the number of William's friends and James's enemies. Of the persons who were appointed in their stead all were Roman Catholics, but this was the only qualifica- tion required. The majority consisted of such as were entirely ignorant of military duties, or were taken from the meanest of the people. Some had been grooms, some footmen, and some noted marauders. Archbishop King mentions the case of the famous rapparees, the Brannans, who were made officers, 1 Dalrymple tells us that James afterwards complained that Tyr- connel exceeded his orders. The truth is, the statements of the king and of Tyrconnel are equally unworthy of credit. James says in his Memoirs that he was pleased with Tyrconnel's conduct ; " to him [Tyrconnel], therefore, the king gave a power to regulate the troops, to place and displace whom he pleased, which he executed very much to the king's satisfaction and advantage." On the other hand, Tyr- connel informed Clarendon that the work was entirely the king's. Clarendon thus reports Tyrconnel: "Here are great alterations to be made and the poor people who are put out think it my doing, and G d me I have little or nothing to do in the matter ; for I told the king that I knew not two of the captains, nor other inferior officers in the whole army. I know there are some hard cases which I am sorry for ; but by G I know not how to help them. You must know, my lord, the king, who is a Eoman Catholic, is resolved to employ his subjects of that religion." — Corr. i. 481. 2 One of these dismissed officers was Gustavus Hamilton, afterwards Governor of Enniskillen, who did good service for King William. 40 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i and says that he had been informed that there were at least twenty tories officers in one regiment, and that there were very few regiments without some. Lord Clarendon complains of the excesses committed by these new officers, and points to great abuses committed by them with regard to the subsistence money of the army. " Scarce a colonel of the army," he writes, " knows anything of his regiment." D'Avaux, in one of his despatches, informs the French king that the colonels of the Irish army were generally men of good family, who had never seen service, but that the captains were butchers, tailors, and shoemakers. 1 The change or remodelling of the army, as it was termed, was not limited to the officers. Tyrconnel, with equal brutality and disregard of common humanity, disbanded between five and six thousand common soldiers. The dis- missal of the soldiers to beg through the country created even a greater sensation than that of the officers, " because their clothes having been taken from them when they were broke, they wandered, half naked, through every part of the king- dom." 2 In Dublin four hundred of the regiment of the guards were turned out in one day, three hundred of whom had no " visible fault." 3 The same thing was done at the same time throughout the country. The new officers received orders to enlist none but Roman Catholics. 4 " I will give you," says Lord Clarendon, " one instance only : Mr. Nicholas Darcy, who has the company late Captain Motloe's, called his com- 1 " La pi apart de ces regimens sont levez par dez gentils homines qui n'ont jamais este a l'armee. Ce sont des taillenrs, des bouchers, des cordonniers, qui ont forme" les compazines, et qui en sont les capitaines." 2 Dalrymple. " This part he [Tyrconnel] acted in a most insult- ing barbarous manner, causing poor men that had no clothes on their backs but red coats to be .stripped to their shirts and so turned off ; and of all this he himself was an inhuman spectator." — Secret Consults, etc. 3 Clarendon to Rochester, Corr. i. 476. 4 " The turning out so many men in an instant, taking in none but natives in their room, and the very indiscreet conduct of some of the new officers in declaring they will entertain no English nor any Pro- testants, does frighten people." — Clarendon to Sunderland, ib. p. 485. sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 41 pany together, and asked them if they went to mass, to which forty of them said ' no,' whereupon he immediately dismissed them, and said he had kept as many above a week at his own house upon his own charge, who, the next morn- ing, were all admitted." Of the class of recruits who replaced the veterans dismissed by Tyrconnel, let two contemporaries speak : " When any new men are listed, they are sent to the commissary to be sworn. The first thing they say is, that they will not take the oath of supremacy ; he tells them he is not to tender it to them, therefore they need not fear ; that they are only to take the oath of fidelity, which is the oath mentioned in my instructions, and taken by the Roman Catholic judges. That they swallow ; and being asked whether they understood what they have sworn, the answer was, ' yes, they had been sworn to be true to the Pope and their religion ;' and being told by some that they had been sworn to be true to the king, they replied, ' their priest had told them they must take no oath but to be true to the Pope.' " l The other witness is Mr. Stafford, a Roman Catholic who, through the interest of his son, lately appointed a Master in Chancery, had been made a Justice of the Peace. In a charge to the grand jury, at the quarter sessions held at Castlebar in October 1686, this gentleman naively remarked: " I shall not need to say much concerning rogues and vaga- bonds, the country being pretty well cleared of them, by reason His Majesty has entertained them all in his service, clothed them with red coats, and provided well for them." 5 1 Clarendon's Corr. i. 476. - This charge is so amusing that the whole of it is here given. "Gentlemen, the spoiling of your garrans in their infancy, so that they are not afterwards fit to do His Majesty any service ; of this beware, gentlemen. Next, your burning corn in the straw, contrary to an Act of Parliament. But perhaps this Lustrabane bread may palate your mouth very well ; but you want the straw in winter to lie upon your- selves, for you generally lie upon straw, and for fodder for your cattle, so that you are forced to lift them up by the tail ; of this also beware, 42 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i 3. The Remodelling of the Courts of Justice Lord Clarendon was dismissed at the end of 1686, and Tyrconnel arrived in Ireland, and was sworn in as Lord Deputy on the 11th February 1687. During Clarendon's administration Sir Charles Porter had been Lord Chancellor. He had been originally chosen because it was supposed that he held strong opinions in favour of absolute authority. But latterly he had shown himself restive at the proceedings of Tyrconnel, and had taken occasion to declare publicly that "he came not over to serve a turn, nor would he act against his conscience." Accordingly he was dismissed, and Tyr- connel brought over with him a ready-made chancellor. One Alexander Fitton, who had been detected in forgery at Westminster and Chester, and fined by the House of Lords, was taken out of prison and made Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 1 His single merit was that he was a convert to Catholicism. A few circumstances of the many related of this judge will give us an idea of his fitness for this great post. He was in the habit of declaring from the bench that all Protestants were rogues, and that amongst forty thousand of them there was not one who was not a traitor, a rebel, and a villain. He overruled the common rules of practice and the law of the land, stating, at the same time, that the Chancery was above all law, and that no law could bind his conscience. After hearing a cause between a Protestant and Roman Catholic, he would say that he would consult a divine, and he would then retire to take the opinion of his chaplain, an ecclesiastic educated in Spain. As assistants to the Chancellor, Dr. Stafford, a priest, and Felix O'Neill, were appointed Masters. To these the causes between Protestants and Roman Catholics were gentlemen. I shall not need," etc., as above. Clarendon answers for the fact of this address having been delivered. — Gorr. ii. 5G. 1 Fitton sat in the Dublin Parliament as Lord Gosworth. sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 43 generally referred, and upon their report the Chancellor passed his orders and decrees. In each of the Common Law Courts three judges then sat. Up to 1684 these judges had been Protestants. But when Tyrconnel came into power, two Eoman Catholics were at once appointed, and one Protestant retained, " pinioned," as Archbishop King expresses it, by his two brethren. The Protestant " to serve for a pretence of impartiality, and yet to signify nothing," the two Catholics to secure the majority. A Mr. Thomas Nugent, the son of an attainted peer, and who afterwards sat in James's parliament as Lord Riverstown, " who had never been taken notice of at the bar but for more than ordinary brogue and ignorance of the law," 1 and whom Lord Clarendon calls " a very troublesome, impertinent creature," was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench. 2 The appointment of the son of an attainted person to decide whether the outlawries against his father and others should be reversed, and whether the settlement of the lands should stand, boded no good to the present possessors. Their fears were quickly verified. Nugent, we are told, reversed the outlawries as fast as they came before him. In all the cases between Catholics and Protestants which came into his Court, he was never known, in a single instance, to give judgment for one of the latter. When accused persons were 1 King. 2 A charge which this judge delivered to the Dublin Grand Jury in 1688 will enable us to form an idea of him. "The Lord Chief Justice Nugent, than whom perhaps the Bench never bore a more con- fident ignorant Irishman, gave the charge to the Grand Jury, in which he applauded and extolled above the height of an hyperbole the magnanimous and heroic actions of the great and just King James ; and on the contrary cast the most vilifying reproaches upon the Prince of Orange. . . . His conclusion was that now the States of Holland were weary of the prince, and that they had sent him over to be dressed as Monmouth was, but that was too good for him. And that he doubted not before a month passed to hear that they were hung up all over England in bunches like ropes of onions." — Secret Consults, etc. 44 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chai>. i acquitted on the palpable perjury of the witnesses for the prosecution, he would not allow the witnesses to be prosecuted, alleging that they had sworn for the king, and that he believed the accused to be guilty, though it could not be proved. He declared from the bench on circuit that rapparees were necessary evils. I shall hereafter call attention to two extravagant decisions of this judge. The other members of this Court were Lyndon, a Protestant, and Sir Brian O'Neal, an inveterate enemy of Englishmen and Protestants. The Court of Exchequer was then the only one from which there lay no appeal or writ of error into England, and there was therefore no check upon the reversal of outlawries or restraint on decisions contrary to the Acts of Settlement. In consequence the whole business of the kingdom, so far as it related to these matters, and all actions of trespass and ejectment, were brought into this Court. Stephen Eice, an able but intemperate Ptoman Catholic, was appointed Chief Baron. His hostility to the Acts of Settlement and the Protestant interests was notorious. 1 Before he was made a judge he was often heard to say that he would drive a coach- and-six through these Acts, and before they were repealed by the Irish Parliament which afterwards sat in Dublin he frequently declared on the bench that they were against natural equity, and could not oblige. He used to say from the same place that the Protestants should have nothing from 1 In the spring of 1688 Nugent and Rice were sent over to Eng- land by Tyrconnel with the draft of an Act for the repeal of the Acts of Settlement. Sunderland says that lie was ottered .£40,000 for his concurrence and support. When the matter was first laid before the Privy Council, Lord Bellasis proposed that Nugent and Rice should be committed or commanded to return to Ireland immediately. It was resolved however to hear them. It became known in London that they were the bearers of a proposel to repeal the Acts. On the day they proceeded (o the Council their coach was surrounded by boys carrying sticks with potatoes stuck on them, and crying out, "Make room for the Irish ambassadors." — Sunderland's Letter ; Earris, Life of Will. Ill, Appen. ; Secret Consults ; State Tracts, 3. sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 45 him but the utmost rigour of the law. His Court, we are informed, was immediately filled with Papist plaintiffs. " Every one that had a forged deed or a false witness met with favour and countenance from him ; and he, knowing that they could not bring his sentences to England to be examined there, acted as a man that feared no after-account or reckon- ing. It was before him that all the charters in the kingdom were damned, and that in a term or two, in such a manner that proved him a man of despatch, though not of justice. If he had been left alone, it was really believed that in a few years he would, by some contrivance or other, have given away most of the Protestant estates in Ireland.", 1 The com- panions on the bench of the Chief Baron were Sir Henry Lynch, equally hostile to the Protestants, and Baron Worth, 2 a Protestant. The Court of Common Pleas was deserted, the business of the kingdom being carried into the King's Bench and the Exchequer. Two of the judges of this Court were able, up- right, and honourable men — Keating, the Chief Justice, a Protestant, and Daly, a Eoman Catholic. In the correspond- ence of Lord Clarendon Keating appears as the one dignified character of the letters, and he afterwards showed his worth in the Privy Council before he was dismissed from that 1 King. 2 Tyrconnel was at one time anxious to remove Worth. Clarendon tells us his opinion of this judge. " Well," said Lord Tyrconnel, •" I have only one thing more to say at present, and that is concerning Baron Worth, who, by G , is a d d rogue." " How so, my Lord ?" said I. " A pox," said he ; "you know he is a Whig, and the greatest favourer of fanatics in the world." On Clarendon's saying that he only knew Worth as a judge, and that he behaved himself as an honest man, Tyrconnel replied, "By G , I will prove him to be a rogue." " Pray do, my Lord," said Clarendon ; "any charge you bring against him shall be examined." To this Tyrconnel answered, " By G , I will have it brought to the Council Board. The king lias an ill opinion of him, and I will do his business." — Clarendon's Gorr. i. 457. 46 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i body, and by his very noble letter to King James against the repeal of the Acts of Settlement. Daly was also opposed to their repeal, and was afterwards impeached by the Irish Parliament for having said in private that they were not a parliament, but a mere rabble, such as at Naples had thrown up their hats in honour of Massaniello. 1 He was only saved by the sudden joy of the Commons on a false report that Londonderry had surrendered. 2 The third judge was Peter Martin, a Roman Catholic. 4. The Appointment of Catholic Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace Tyrconnel, having remodelled the Courts of Justice to his satisfaction, proceeded to secure to his creatures the exe- cution of the laws and the nomination of juries. In January 1686 Lord Clarendon drew up a list of sheriffs for the follow- ing year. He tells us he bestowed particular care in making this list ; that before making it he had made inquiries from all 1 Daly was accused of having made use of the following expres- sions : " That instead of being a parliament, as we pretend, we are more like Massaniello's confused rabble, every man making a noise for an estate and talking nonsense when our lives are in danger ; we ex- pect a sudden invasion from England and a bloody war likely to ensue. As persons altogether unmindful of the ruin that hangs over our heads, and without taking any care to prevent it, we are dividing the bear's skin before she is taken. All the honour we do His Majesty is by reflecting on his royal father and brother as wicked and unjust princes, charging them with enacting those laws that were contrary to the laws of God and man." — True Account of the Present State of Ire- land, London, 1689. 2 " Tuesday, the 4th instant, we had an alarm that Derry was burnt with bombs, that the king's army had taken it, and put all in it to the sword. Nugent, of Carlandstown, brought this news into the House of Commons just when they were putting to the vote whether they should prosecute the impeachment against Judge Daly. Some think Nugent, being his friend, did it designedly. The news was received with loud huzzas, and in that good and jolly humour they acquitted the judge." — Letter from Dublin, 12th June 1689, attached to The Journal of the Proceedings of the Parliament in Ireland, 6th July 1689. sec. ii THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF JAMES II 47 persons he could trust, and had taken advice from all quarters respecting the nominations. He was so well satisfied with it that he wrote to Lord Sunderland, " I will venture to say it is the best list of sheriffs that has been for these many years, both for loyalty, prudence, and impartiality." Tyrconnel, however, was not content with this selection of loyal, prudent, and impartial gentlemen. He went over to England, and there, though he had given no intimation in Ireland of his dissatisfaction, and though he was aware who were on the roll before his departure, he complained to the king of Clarendon's selection. The list was sent back to Clarendon with objections, to which he was required to give an answer. The objec- tions were that the gentlemen nominated were Cromwellians or tainted with Whiggism. 1 The objections were satisfactorily answered, and Clarendon's nominees were appointed. But Tyrconnel resolved that none should be appointed for the next year but those of his own way of thinking. He and his creature Nugent, in October 1686, took the extreme step of drawing up a list of those whom they wished to be appointed for the following year, and presented it to the Lord Lieu- tenant. Clarendon complained of their conduct to the king. In a letter to James, 16th October 1686, he writes: "I humbly beg your Majesty's permission upon this occasion to inform you that the day before my Lord Tyrconnel went hence, he and Mr. Justice Nugent gave me a paper of the names of the persons who were thought to be fit to be sheriffs 1 Tyrconnel mentioned this objection to- Lord Clarendon in his usual language. " By G , my lord, I must needs tell you, the sheriffs you made are generally rogues and old Cromwellians." Lord Clarendon explained the great care he had taken in drawing up the list and ended by saying that " he would justify that these sheriffs, generally speaking, were as good a set of men as any had been chosen these dozen years ; and that he would be judged by the Roman Catholics in any county. To which Tyrconnel answered, " By G , I believe it, for there has not been an honest man sheriff in Ireland these twenty years." — Clarendon's Corr. i. 442. 48 TWO CHAPTERS OF IRISH HISTORY chap, i for the next year. I confess, sir, I thought it very strange, to say no worse of it, for any two men to take upon them to