CHAPTER XV

In less than three weeks after the return of Lord Roberts, and the

agitating interview for which she had been impatiently waiting,

England's beloved Queen succumbed to a brief illness, and died January

22, 1901.

Her son Albert Edward was immediately proclaimed King of Great Britain

and Ireland.

The change of Sovereigns has not materially altered the course of

events in the Empire. The King, with much dignity and seriousness,

assumed the responsibilities of his great inheritance, and England

seems to be in safekeeping. The terms finally agreed upon at the Peace

Conference, in May, 1902, bear the signature of Edward _Rex_, instead

of Victoria _Regina_--a {192} signature that peace-loving Sovereign

would so gladly have affixed.

In the year 1904 a British military force entered the hitherto sacred

domain of Tibet with the avowed purpose of obtaining redress from

Tibetan authorities for having violated a commercial agreement made

between China and British India in 1893; which convention was binding

upon Tibet as a vassal State to China. In addition to this, a letter

from the Viceroy of India to the Grand Lama, had been returned

unopened, which, it was claimed, was an insult to the King he

represents.

The time selected for this hostile demonstration, when the

Russo-Japanese War fully engaged the attention of the nations chiefly

interested, was, to say the least, significant; and some were so unkind

as to insinuate that the recently discovered mineral wealth of this

lofty plateau--"this Roof of the World"--was, like that of the

Transvaal in South Africa, a factor in this sudden romantic adventure.

Nature has guarded well this home of {193} mystery; a vast plateau,

from 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea-level is held aloft upon the

giant shoulders of the Himalaya, surrounded by deep valleys filled in

with the detritus of an older world. This inaccessible spot is the

home of the Grand Lama, the earthly representative of Buddha, and

Lhassa is the Holy City where this sacred being resides, a city never

profaned by infidel feet until the morning of August 4, 1904, when it

fell, and was desecrated by the presence of red-coated soldiers, and

the blare of military bands, and still worse the plundering of

treasure-houses and monasteries.

It was a rude awakening from the slumber of centuries! The Western

mind can scarcely realize how seriously this has wounded the

sensibilities of millions of people throughout the East; and the

question arises whether England may not some day have to pay more

dearly than now appears for the concessions she has obtained.

The treaty in its early form throws light upon the results expected

when the {194} expedition was planned. It bound the Tibetan

authorities to establish British markets at certain designated points;

and stipulated that, without the consent of Great Britain, no Tibetan

territory could be leased to any foreign power. Of course many people

could see in this the ultimate purpose of a British occupation of

Tibet, and an open way to the Yangtse Valley!

But with the Russo-Japanese War over, and Russia free to exert her

control over China, a stand was taken by the Chinese Government which

has resulted in modifying the terms of the treaty, which has recently

been signed at Pekin, by which Great Britain affirms that she does not

seek for herself any privileges which are denied to any other state or

the subjects thereof.

Two very important measures have been under consideration during the

new reign; one of these seeming to have afforded a solution for the

Land-problem in Ireland, which has for so long been the nightmare of

British politics. Further details of this {195} will be found in the

"History of Ireland," separately treated in this volume.

The other measure deals with the question of Education, and is an

attempt to solve to the satisfaction of Nonconformists, Catholics,

Church-of-England people, and people of no church at all, whether there

shall be any religious instruction in the schools for which all are

taxed, and if so what shall be its nature and restrictions.

The tendency since 1870 has been steadily toward the method adopted by

the United States, _i.e._, a severance of the civil community from all

responsibility for religious teaching. And such is the tendency of the

Bill now before the House of Lords. But it is believed that that

conservative body will hesitate long before giving up such a cherished

and time-encrusted principle as is involved.

So many Parliamentary reforms have been accomplished since the time

they commenced in 1832, the time seems not far distant when there will

be little more for Liberals to urge, or for Conservatives and the {196}

House of Lords to obstruct. Monarchy is absolutely shorn of its

dangers. The House of Commons, which is the actual ruling power of the

Kingdom, is only the expression of the popular will.

We are accustomed to regard American freedom as the one supreme type.

But it is not. The popular will in England reaches the springs of

Government more freely, more swiftly, and more imperiously, than it

does in Republican America. It comes as a stern mandate, which must be

obeyed on the instant. The King of England has less power than the

President of the United States. The President can form a definite

policy, select his own Ministry to carry it out, and to some extent

have his own way for four years, whether the people like it or not.

The King cannot do this for a day. His Ministry cannot stand an hour,

with a policy disapproved by the Commons. Not since Anne has a

sovereign refused signature to an Act of Parliament. The Georges, and

William IV., continued to exercise the power of dismissing Ministers at

their {197} pleasure. But since Victoria, an unwritten law forbids it,

and with this vanishes the last _remnant of a personal Government_.

The end long sought is attained.

The history of no other people affords such an illustration of a

steadily progressive national development from seed to blossom,

compelled by one persistent force. Freedom in England has not been

wrought by cataclysm as in France, but has unfolded like a plant from a

life within; impeded and arrested sometimes, but patiently biding its

time, and then steadily and irresistibly pressing outward; one leaf

after another freeing itself from the detaining force. Only a few more

remain to be unclosed, and we shall behold the consummate flower of

fourteen centuries;--centuries in which the most practical nation in

the world has steadily pursued an _ideal_--the ideal of individual

freedom subordinated only to the good of the whole!

{199}

A SHORT HISTORY OF IRELAND.

The history of prehistoric Ireland as told in ancient chronicles,

easily proves the Irish to be the oldest nation in Europe, mingling

their story with those not alone of Egypt, Troy, Greece, and Rome, but

with that of Noah and the antediluvian world. Who was the Lady Caesair,

who fled with her household to Ireland from the coming deluge after

being refused shelter by Noah? and who Nemehd, the next colonist from

the East, who heads the royal procession of one hundred and eighteen

kings? and who, above all, is Milesius, who comes fresh from the

lingual disaster at Shinar, the divinely appointed ruler, bringing with

him his Egyptian wife Scota (Pharaoh's daughter) and her son Gael? and

who that other son Heber, whose name was given to the original _lingua

humana_ (the Hebrew), in honor of his efforts to prevent the

blasphemous building of {200} Babel? For what do these shadowy figures

stand, looming out of formless mist and chaos, and bestowing their

names as imperishable memorials?--Scotia, Scots, Gaelic,--the word

Gaelic in its true significance including Ireland and Scotland. Even

the name Fenian takes on a venerable dignity when we learn that Fenius,

the Scythian King, and father of Milesius, established the first

university--a sort of school of languages--for the study of the

seventy-two new varieties of human speech, appointing seventy-two wise

men to master this new and troublesome branch of human knowledge! We

are told that Heber and Heremon, the sons of Milesius, finally divided

the island between them, and then, after the fashion of Romulus, Heber

drove the factious Heremon over the sea into the land of the Picts, and

reigned alone over the Scots in Ireland.

The sober truth seems to be that Ireland, at a very early period, was

known to the Greeks as Ierne (from which comes Erin), and later to the

Romans as Hibernia. At a very remote time it seems to have been

colonized by Greek and other Eastern peoples, who left a deep impress

upon the Celtic race {201} already inhabiting the island; but an

impress upon the mind, not the life, of the Celts, for no vestige of

Greek or other civilization, except in language and in ideals, has ever

been found in Ireland. The only archaeological remains are cromlechs,

which tell of a Druidical worship, and the round towers, belonging to a

much later period, whose purpose is only conjectured.

Ireland's Aryan parentage is plainly indicated in its primitive social

organization and system of laws. The family was the social unit, and

the clan or _sept_ was only a larger family. Pre-Christian Ireland was

divided into five septs: Munster, Connaught, Ulster, Leinster, and

Meath. Each of these tribal divisions was governed by a chief or king,

who was the head of the clan (or family). Among these, the chief-king,

or _Ard Reagh_, resided at Tara in Meath, and received allegiance from

the other four, with no jurisdiction, however, over the internal

affairs of the other kingdoms. There was a perpetual strife between

the clans. Outside of one's own tribal limits was the enemy's country.

The business of life was marauding and plundering, and the greatest

hero {202} was he who could accomplish these things by deeds of the

greatest daring.

All alike lived under a simple code of laws administered by a

hereditary class of jurists called Brehons. All offences were

punishable by a system of fines called erics. The land was owned by

the clan. Primogeniture was unknown, and the succession to the office

of chief was determined by the clan, which had power to select any one

within the family lines as Tanist or successor. This in "Brehon Law"

is known as the "law of Tanistry," and was closely interwoven with the

later history of Ireland. But the class more exalted than kings or

brehons was the Bards. These were inspired singers, before whom

Brehons quailed and kings meekly bowed their heads.

During the Roman occupation of Britain in which that country was

Christianized, pagan Ireland heard nothing of the new evangel almost at

her door. But in 432, after Britain had relapsed into paganism, St.

Patrick came into the darkened isle. If ever Pentecostal fires

descended upon a nation it was in those sixty years during which one

saintly man transformed a people from {203} brutish paganism to

Christianity, and converted Ireland into the torch-bearer and nourisher

of intellectual and spiritual life, so that as the gothic night was

settling upon Europe, the centre of illumination seemed to be passing

from Rome to Ireland. Their missionaries were in Britain, Germany,

Gaul; and students from Charlemagne's dominions, and the sons of kings

from other lands, flocked to those stone monasteries, the remains of

which are still to be seen upon the Irish coast, and which were then

the acknowledged centres of learning in Europe. It was not until late

in the ninth century that Ireland played a truly great part in European

history. Rome became jealous of these fiery Christians; they had never

worn her yoke, and concerned themselves little about the Pope. They

had their own views about the shape of the tonsure, and also their own

time for celebrating Easter, which was heretical and contumacious, and

there began a struggle between Roman and Western Christianity. The

passion for art and letters which accompanied this spiritual birth

makes this, indeed, a Golden Age. But the painting of missals, and

study of Greek poetry and philosophy, {204} brought no change in the

life of the people. It was for the learned, and a subject for just

pride in retrospect. But the Christianized septs fought each other as

before, and life was no less wild and disordered than it had always

been.

In the eighth century the first viking appeared. It was then that a

master-spirit arose, a man of the clan of O'Brien--_Brian Boru_. He

drove out the Danes, usurped the place of Chief-King, and reigned in

the Halls of Tara for a few years, then left his land to lapse once

more into a chaos of fighting clans. But it was Dermot, the King of

Leinster, whose fatal quarrel led to the subjugation of the land to

England. The Irish epic, like that of Troy, has its Paris and Helen.

If that fierce old man had not fallen in love with the wife of the Lord

of Brefny and carried her away, there might have been a different story

to tell. The injured husband made war upon him, in which the

Chief-King took part, and so hot was it made for the wife-stealer, that

he offered to place Leinster at the feet of Henry II. in return for

assistance. A party of adventurous barons, led by Strongbow, the Earl

of Pembroke, {205} rushed to Dermot's rescue, defeated the Chief-King,

drove the Danes out of Dublin, which they had founded, and took

possession of that city themselves. Henry II. followed up the

unauthorized raid of his barons with a well-equipped army, which he

himself led, landing upon the Irish coast in 1171.

The conquest was soon complete, and Henry proceeded to organize his new

territory, dividing it into counties, and setting up law-courts at

Dublin, which was chosen as the Seat of his Lord-Deputy. The system of

English law was established for the use of the Norman barons and

English settlers, the natives being allowed to live under their old

system of Brehon laws. Henry gave huge grants of land with feudal

rights to his barons, then returned to his own troubled kingdom,

leaving them to establish their claims and settle accounts with the

Irish chieftains as best they could. The sword was the argument used

on both sides, and a conflict between the brehon and feudal systems had

commenced which still continues in Ireland. If Henry had expected to

convert Irishmen into Englishmen, he had {206} miscalculated; it was

the reverse which happened--the Norman-English were slowly but surely

converted into Irishmen, and two elements were thereafter side by side,

the Old Irish and the Anglo-Irish, who, however antagonistic, had

always a certain community of interest which drew them together in

great emergencies.

It is an easy task to describe a storm which has one centre. But how

is one to describe the confused play of forces in a cyclone which has

centres within centres? Irish chieftains at war with Irish chieftains,

jealous Norman barons with Norman barons, all at the same time in

deadly struggle with O'Neills, O'Connells, and O'Briens, who would

never cease to fight for the territory which had been torn from them;

and yet each and all of these ready in a desperate crisis to combine

for the preservation of Ireland. In this chaos the territorial barons

were the framework of the structure. The grants bestowed by Henry II.

had created, in fact, a group of small principalities. These were

called Palatinates, and the power of the Lords Palatine was almost

without limit. Each was a king in his own little {207} kingdom--could

make war upon his neighbors, and recruit his army from his own vassals.

It was the Geraldines who played the most historic part among these

Palatines, the houses of Kildare and Desmond both being branches of

this famous Norman family, which was always in high favor with the

English sovereign, and always at war with the rival house of Ormond,

the next most powerful Anglo-Norman family, descended from Thomas a

Becket. These barons, or "Lords of the Pale," were, of course,

supposed to be the intermediaries for the King's authority. But the

Geraldines seem to have found plenty of time to build up their own

fortunes, and as peace with their neighbors was sometimes more

conducive to that pursuit, alliances with native chiefs and marriages

with their daughters had in time made of them pretty good Irishmen.

But our main purpose is not to follow the fortunes of these picturesque

and romantic robbers who considered all Ireland their legitimate prey,

but rather those of the hapless native population, dispossessed of

their homes, hiding in forests and morasses, and whom it was the policy

of the English {208} Government to efface in their own country. These

pages will tell of many efforts to compel loyalty, but not one effort

to _win_ the loyalty of the Irish people is recorded in history! No

race in the world is more susceptible to kindness and more easily

reached by personal influences, and there are none of whom a passionate

loyalty is more characteristic. What might have been the effect of a

policy of kindness instead of exasperation, we can only guess. But we

can all see plainly enough the disastrous results which have come from

pouring vitriol upon open wounds, and from treating a nation as if they

were not only intruders but outlaws in their own land.

Listen to the Statutes of Kilkenny, passed by an obedient Parliament at

a time when Edward III. was depending upon sinewy, clean-limbed young

Irishmen to fight his battles in France and help him to win _Crecy_.

(Which they did.) These are some of the provisions of the statute:

Marriage between English and Irish is punishable by death in most

terrible form. It is high treason to give horses, goods, or weapons of

any sort to the Irish. War with the natives {209} is binding upon good

colonists. To speak the language of the country is a penal offence,

and the killing of an Irishman is not to be reckoned as a crime.

But in spite of the ferocity of her purpose, England grew lax. She had

great wars on her hands, and more important interests to look after.

Things were left to the Geraldines, and to the Irish Parliament, which

was controlled by the Lords of the Pale. Intermarriages, against which

horrible penalties had once been enforced, had become frequent, and

many dispossessed chiefs, notably the O'Neills, had recovered their own

lands. So, when Henry VII. came to the throne, although the Norman

banners had for three centuries floated over Ireland, the English

territory, "the Pale," was really reduced to a small area about Dublin.

Henry VII. determined to change all this. Sir Edward Poynings came

charged with a mission, and Parliament passed an Act called _Poynings

Act_, by which English laws were made operative in Ireland as in

England. When Henry VIII. succeeded his father, the astute Wolsey soon

doubted the fidelity of the Geraldines. Of what use {210} were the

Statutes of Kilkenny and the Poynings Act, when the ruling Anglo-Irish

house acted as if they did not exist! He planned their downfall. The

great Earl of Kildare was summoned to London, and six of the doomed

house were beheaded in the Tower. The Reformation had given a new

aspect to the troubles in Ireland. Henry's attack upon the Church drew

together the native Irish and the Anglo-Irish. The struggle had been

hitherto only one over territory, between these naturally hostile

classes; now they were drawn together by a common peril to their

Church, and when, in 1560, Queen Elizabeth had passed the famous Act of

Uniformity, making the Protestant liturgy compulsory, the exasperation

had reached an acute stage, and the sense of former wrongs was

intensified by this new oppression. Ireland was filled with hatred and

burning with desire for vengeance, and there was one proud family in

Ulster, the O'Neills, which was preparing to defy all England. They

scornfully threw away the title "Earl of Tyrone," bestowed upon the

head of their house by Henry VIII,, and declared that by virtue {211}

of the old Irish law of Tanistry, Shane O'Neill was King of Ulster! It

was a test case of the validity of Irish or English laws. "Shane the

Proud," the King of Ulster, at the invitation of Elizabeth, appeared

with his wild followers at her Court, wearing their saffron shirts and

battle-axes. The tactful Queen patched up a peace with her rival, and

then made sure that his head should in a few weeks adorn the walls of

Dublin Castle. His forfeited kingdom was thickly planted with English

and Scotch settlers, who, when they tried to settle, were usually

killed by the O'Neills. The only thing to be done was to exterminate

this troublesome tribe. This grew into the larger purpose of

extirpating the whole of the obnoxious native population. The

Geraldines were not all dead, and this atrocious plan led to the famous

Geraldine League, and that to the Desmond Rebellion. The league which

was to be the avenger of centuries of wrong, was a Catholic one. The

Earl of Desmond had long been in communication with Rome and with

Spain, enlisting their sympathies for their co-religionists in Ireland.

A recent event {212} helped to steel the hearts of the natives against

pity should they succeed. A rising in Connaught had, at the suggestion

of Sir Francis Crosby, been put down in the following way. The chiefs

and their kinsmen, four hundred in number, were invited to a banquet in

the fort of Mullaghmast. But one man escaped alive from that feast of

death! One hundred and eighty from the clan of O'Moore alone were

slaughtered. It was "Rory O'Moore" who did not attend the banquet, who

kept alive the memory of the awful event for many a year by his

battle-cry, "Remember Mullaghmast!" Now the long-impending battle was

on, with a Geraldine for a standard-bearer. But it was in vain.

Another Earl of Kildare perished in the Tower, and another Desmond head

was sent there as a warning against disloyalty! Those who escaped the

slaughter fell by the executioner, and the remnant, hiding from both,

perished by famine. But Munster was "pacified." The enormous Desmond

estate, a hundred miles in territory, was confiscated and planted with

settlers who would undertake the doubtful task of settling.

{213}

The smothered fires next broke out in Ulster--the brilliant Earl of

Tyrone headed the rebellion bearing his name, with Spain as an ally.

The Queen sent the Earl of Essex to crush Tyrone. His failure to crush

or even to check the great leader, and his extraordinary conduct in

consenting to an armistice at the moment when he might have compelled a

surrender, brought such a reprimand from the furious Queen that he

rushed back to England, and to his death. Another and more successful

leader came--Mountjoy. The rebellion was put down, its leader exiled,

and his estate, comprising six entire counties, was confiscated,

planted with Scotch settlers, and Ulster, too, was "pacified."

The reign of Charles I. revived hope in Ireland. He wanted money, and

when Strafford came bearing profuse promises of religious and civil

liberty, and the righting of wrongs, a grateful Parliament at once

voted the L100,000 demanded for the immediate use of the Crown, also

10,000 foot and 1,000 horse for his use in the impending revolution,

which was soon precipitated by the attempt of Charles and Laud to force

the liturgy of the Established Church upon {214} the people in

Scotland. Between the Scotch Presbyterians and the Irish Catholics

there was the bitterest hatred engendered during the long strife

between the natives and the Scotch settlers. So the King's cause was

Ireland's cause, his enemies were her enemies, and his triumph would

also be hers. The day of liberation seemed at hand. The Lords of the

Pale were in constant communication with the King and ready to

co-operate with him in his designs upon Scotland. Such was the

situation when Charles, under the pressure of his need of money,

summoned the Parliament (1641)--the famous Long Parliament--which was

destined to sit for twenty eventful years.

Well would it be for Ireland if it could blot out the memory of that

year (1641) and the horrid event it recalls. The story briefly told is

that a plot, having for its end a general forcible exodus of the hated

settlers, was discovered and defeated, when a disappointed and

infuriated horde of armed men spent their rage upon a community of

Scotch settlers in Armagh and Tyrone, whom they massacred with horrible

barbarities.

There is no reason to believe this deed was {215} premeditated; but it

occurred, and was atrocious in details and appalling in magnitude.

There can be no justification for massacre at any time; but if there

were no background of cruelty for this particular one, it would stand

out blacker even than it does upon the pages of history. There were

many massacres behind it--massacres committed not to avenge wrongs, but

to accomplish them! The massacre of Protestants by Irish Catholics is

in itself no more hideous than the massacre of Irish Catholics by

Protestants. And was it strange that in their first chance at

retaliation, this half-civilized people treated their oppressors as

their oppressors had many, many times treated them? Could anything

else have been expected? especially when we learn that the Scotch

Presbyterians in Tyrone and Armagh immediately retaliated by murdering

thirty Irish Catholic families who were in no way implicated in the

horror!

Strafford's head had fallen in the first days of the Long Parliament;

then Archbishop Laud met the same fate, and finally the execution of

Charles I. at Whitehall, in 1649, put an end to the dreams of

liberation. {216} Almost the first thing to occupy the attention of

Cromwell was the settling of accounts with the Catholic rebels in

Ireland, who had for years been intriguing with the traitor King and

were even now plotting with the Pope's nuncio, Rinucini, for the return

of the exiled Prince Charles.

It required six years and 600,000 lives for Cromwell to inflict proper

punishment upon Ireland for these offences and the massacre of 1641; or

rather, to _prepare_ for the punishment which was now to begin, and for

which we shall search history in vain for a parallel! The heroic

Cromwellian scheme--which was carried out to the letter--was this: The

entire native population were, before May 1, 1654, to depart in a body

for Connaught, there to inhabit a small reservation in a desolate tract

between the Shannon and the sea, of which it was said by one of the

commissioners engaged in this business, "there was not wood enough to

burn, water enough to drown, nor earth enough to bury a man." They

must not go within two miles of the river, nor four miles of the sea, a

cordon of soldiers being permanently stationed with orders to shoot

{217} anyone who overstepped such limits. Any Irish who after the date

named were found east of the appointed line were to suffer death.

Resistance was hopeless. We hear of wild pleas for time, for a brief

delay to collect a few comforts, and make some provision for food and

shelter. But at the beating of the drum and blast of the trumpet, and

urged on by bayonets, the tide of wretched humanity flowed into

Connaught, delicately nurtured ladies and children, the infirm, the

sick, the high and the low, peer and peasant, sharing alike the vast

sentence of banishment and starvation. The fate of others was even

worse, many thousands, ladies, children, people of all ranks, had for

various reasons been left behind. Wholesale executions of so great a

number of helpless beings were impossible, so they were sold in batches

and shipped, most of them to the West Indies and to the newly acquired

island of Jamaica, to be heard of never more; while of the sturdier

remnant left, a few fled into exile in other lands, and the rest to the

woods, there to lead lives of wild brigandage, hiding like wolves in

caves and clefts of rocks, with a price upon their heads!

{218}

Of the two crimes, the Cromwellian settlement and the massacre of 1641,

it seems to the writer of this that Cromwell's is the heavier burden

for the conscience of a nation to carry! Who can wonder that the Irish

did not love England, and that the task of governing a people so

estranged has been a difficult one for English statesmanship ever since?

But the extinction of a nation requires time, even when accomplished by

measures so admirable as those employed in the Cromwellian settlement.

In 1660 Charles II. was on his father's throne, and we hear of hopes

revived, and the expectation that the awful suffering endured for the

father would be rewarded by his son. The land of the exiles in

Connaught had been bestowed by Cromwell upon his followers. But quick

to discern the turn in the tide, these men had helped to bring the

exiled Prince Charles back to his throne. They expected reward, not

punishment! Like many another successful candidate, Charles was

embarrassed by obligations to his friends; besides, he must not offend

the anti-Catholic sentiment in England, which since the massacre of

{219} 1641 had become a passion. The matter of the land was finally

adjudicated; such Irish as could clear themselves of complicity with

the Papal Nuncio and of certain other serious offences, of which almost

all were guilty, might have their possessions restored to them. So a

small portion of the land came back to its owners, and the Duke of

Ormond, a stanch Protestant, was created Viceroy.

Although nominally a Protestant, to the pleasure-loving Charles the

religion of his kingdom was the very smallest concern. So, more from

indifference than indulgence, things became easier for the Irish

Catholics, and exiles began to return. The Protestants, both English

and Irish, were alarmed. With the massacre ever before them, they

believed the only safety for Protestants was in keeping the Irish

papists in a condition of absolute helplessness. There was a

smouldering mass of apprehension which needed only a spark to convert

it into a blaze. The murder of Sir Edward Bery Godfrey, a magistrate,

afforded this spark. Titus Gates, the most worthless scoundrel in all

England, had recently made a sworn statement before this gentleman to

the effect {220} that a plot existed for the murder of the King in

order to place his Catholic brother on the throne, to be followed by a

general massacre of Protestants, the burning of London, and an invasion

of Ireland by the French. When Sir Edward was found dead upon a

hill-side, men's minds leaped to the conclusion that the carnival of

blood had begun. An insane panic set in. Nothing short of death would

satisfy the popular frenzy. The Roman Catholic Archbishop, Dr.

Plunkett, a man revered and beloved even by Protestants, was dragged to

London, and for complicity in a French plot which never existed, and

for aiding a French invasion which had never been contemplated, was

hanged, drawn, and quartered. Innocent victims were torn from their

homes, fifteen sent to the gallows, and 2,000 languished in prisons,

while a suite of apartments at Whitehall and L600 a year was bestowed

upon Gates, who was greeted as the saviour of his country! In two

years more Gates was driven from his apartment at Whitehall for calling

the heir to the throne a traitor, was found guilty of perjury, and

sentenced to be pilloried, flogged, and imprisoned for life. {221} And

so ended the famous "Popish Plot" of 1678.

In 1685 Charles II. died, and was succeeded by his brother, James II.

It was precisely because this ignominious reign was so disastrous to

England, that it was a period of brief triumph for Ireland. That

country was the corner-stone for the political structure which James

had long contemplated. It was the stronghold for the Catholicism which

he intended should become the religion of his kingdom. The Duke of

Ormond was deposed, and a Catholic filled the office of Viceroy in

Ireland. At last their turn had come, and no time was lost. An Irish

Parliament was summoned, in which there were just six Protestants. All

the things of which they had dreamed for years were accomplished. The

Poynings Act was repealed. Irish disabilities were removed. The Irish

proprietors dispossessed by the Act of Settlement had their lands

restored to them. All Protestants, under terrible penalties, were

ordered to give up their arms before a certain day. 'Men' only

recently with a price upon their heads were now officers in the King's

service, and were {222} quartering their soldiers upon the estates of

the Protestants. There was a general exodus of the Protestants, some

fleeing to England and others into the North, where they finally

entrenched themselves in the cities of Enniskillen and Londonderry,

winning for that last-named city imperishable fame by their heroic

defence during a siege which lasted one hundred and five days.

In the meantime it had become evident in England that the safety of the

kingdom demanded the expulsion of James. His son-in-law, William of

Orange, accepted an invitation to come and share the English throne

with his wife Mary. The fugitive King found a refuge with his friend

and co-conspirator, Louis XIV., and from France continued to direct the

revolutionary movements in Ireland, which he intended to use as a

stepping-stone to his kingdom.

But for Catholic Ireland all these over-turnings meant only a

realization of the long-prayed-for event, a separation from England, a

kingdom of their own, with the Catholic James to reign over them. When

he arrived with his fleet and his French officers and munitions of war,

provided by Louis {223} XIV., he was embraced with tears of rapturous

joy. Their "Deliverer" had come! He passed under triumphal arches and

over flower-strewn roads on his way to Dublin Castle. But almost

before these flowers had faded, James had met the army of William, the

"Battle of the Boyne" had been fought and lost (1690), and as fast as

the winds would carry him he had fled back to France.

As the city of Londonderry had been the last refuge for the Protestants

in the North, it was in the city of Limerick that the Irish Catholics

made their last stand in the South. And the two names stand for

companion acts of valor and heroism. Saarsfield's magnificent defence

of the latter city after the flight of the King and during the terrible

siege by William's army under Ginkel, is the one luminous spot in the

whole campaign of disaster and defeat. With the surrender of Limerick

the end had come. Their "Deliverer" was again a fugitive in France,

and Ireland was face to face with an austere Protestant King, once more

to be called to account and to receive punishment for her crimes.

By the famous Articles of Limerick the terms of the surrender, wrung by

Saarsfield's {224} valor from the English commander, were more

favorable than could have been expected. These were a full pardon, and

a restoration of the rights enjoyed by the Catholics under Charles II.

The army, with its officers, was to go into exile, and they might

choose either the service of William in England, or enroll themselves

in the service of France, Spain, or other European countries. The

latter was the choice of all except a very few; and when the

heart-rending separation was over, wives and mothers clinging in

despair to the retreating vessels, the last act in the Great Rebellion

of 1690 was finished.

Of course the Poynings law was restored, the recent Acts repealed, and

a new period had commenced for Ireland; a period of quiet, but a quiet

not unlike that of the graveyard, the sort of quiet which makes the

wounded and exhausted animal cease to struggle with his captors. For a

whole century we are to hear of no more revolts, risings, or

rebellions. There was nothing left to revolt. Nothing left to rise!

The bone and sinew of the nation had gone to fight under strange

banners upon foreign battle-fields, so there was left a nation of

non-combatants, {225} with spirit broken and hope extinguished, and

grown so pathetically patient, that we hear not a single remonstrance

as William's cold-blooded decrees, known as the "Penal Code," are

placed in operation. These enactments were not blood-thirsty, not

sanguinary, like those of former reigns, but just a deliberate process

apparently designed to convert the Irish into a nation of outcasts, by

destroying every germ of ambition and drying up every spring which is

the source of self-respecting manhood.

Here are a few of the provisions of the famous, or infamous, code: No

Papist could acquire or dispose of property; nor could he own a horse

of the value of more than L5; and any Protestant offering that sum for

a horse he must accept it. He might not practise any learned

profession, nor teach a school, nor send his children to school at home

or abroad. Every barrister, clerk, and attorney must take a solemn

oath not for any purpose to employ persons belonging to that religious

faith. The discovery of any weapon rendered its Catholic owner liable

to fines, whipping, the pillory, and imprisonment. He could not

inherit, or {226} even receive property as a gift from Protestants.

The oldest son of a Catholic, by embracing the Protestant faith, became

the heir-at-law to the whole estate of his father, who was reduced to

the position of life-tenant; and any child by the same Act might be

taken away from its father and a portion of his property assigned to

it; while it was the privilege of the wife who apostatized, to be freed

from her husband, and to have assigned to her a proportion of his

property.

The not unnatural result of these last-named enactments was that many

were driven to feigned conversions in order to keep their families from

starvation. It is said that when old Lady Thomond was reproached for

having bartered her soul by professing the Protestant faith, her quick

retort was, "Is it not better that one old woman should burn, than that

all of the Thomonds should be beggars?"

More details are unnecessary after saying that by a decision of Lord

Chancellor Bowes and Chief-Justice Robinson it was declared that "the

law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman {227}

Catholic," while the English Bishop at Meath declared from his pulpit,

"We are not bound to keep faith with papists." And it must be

remembered that the people placed under this monstrous system of wrong

and degradation were not a handful, whom the welfare of a community

required should be dealt with severely, they were a large majority of

the population, a nation dwelling in their own country, where, by a

Parliament supposed to be their own, they were governed by a minority

of aliens.

In this time of "Protestant ascendancy," as it is called, there were,

of course, only Protestants in the Parliament. They had all the

authority, they alone were competent to vote; they were the privileged

and upper class; an Irish papist, whatever his rank, being the social

inferior of his Protestant neighbor. But let it not be supposed that

the Irish Protestants were on that account happy! They had been

planted in that land as a breakwater against the native Irish flood,

but for all that, England had no idea of permitting them to build up a

dangerous prosperity in Ireland. The theory governing English

statesmanship was that that {228} country must be kept helpless; and to

that end it must be kept poor. During the reign of Charles II. the

importing of Irish cattle into England had been forbidden. The effects

of this prohibition, so ruinous at first, were at last offset by the

discovery that sheep might be made a greater source of profit at home,

than when shipped to England. There was an increasing demand in Europe

for Irish wool, and skilled manufacturers of woollen goods from abroad

had come and started factories, thus giving employment to thousands of

people.

When it was realized in England that a profitable Irish industry had

actually been established, there was a panic. The traders demanded

legislative protection from Irish competition, which came in this form.

In 1699 an Act was passed prohibiting the export of Irish woollen

goods, not alone to England, but to all other countries. The factories

were closed. The manufacturers left the country, never to return, and

a whole population was thrown out of employment. A tide of emigration

then commenced which has never ceased; such as could, fleeing from the

inevitable famine which in a land always {229} so perilously near

starvation must surely come.

There was no market now for the wool which the factories would have

consumed. At home it brought 5d. a pound, but in France a half crown!

The long, deeply indented coast-line was well adapted for smuggling.

French vessels were hovering about, waiting an opportunity to get it;

the people were hungry, and might be hungrier, for there was a famine

in the land! Is it strange that they were converted into law-breakers,

and that wool was packed in caves all along the coast; and that a vast

contraband trade carried on by stealth, took the place of a legitimate

one which was made impossible?

So it became apparent that any efforts to establish profitable

enterprises in Ireland would be put down with a strong hand. The

colonists who had been placed there by England felt bitterly at finding

themselves thus involved in the pre-determined ruin of the country with

which they had identified their own fortunes. Their love of the

parent-country waned, some even turning to and adopting the persecuted

creed. The voice of {230} the native people, utterly stifled, was

never heard in Parliament, and struggles which occurred there were

between Protestants and Protestants; between those who did, and those

who did not, uphold the policy of the Government. Such was the

condition which remained practically unchanged until the middle of the

eighteenth century; a small discontented upper class, chiefly aliens;

below them the peasantry, the mass of the people, whose benumbed

faculties and empty minds had two passions to stir their murky

depths--love for their religion, and hatred of England.

The first voice raised in support of the constitutional rights of

Ireland was that of William Molyneux, an Irish gentleman and scholar, a

philosopher, and the intimate friend of Locke. In the latter part of

the seventeenth century he issued a pamphlet which in the gentlest

terms called attention to the fact that the laws and liberties of

England which had been granted to Ireland five hundred years before had

been invaded, in that the rights of their Parliament, a body which

should be sacred and inviolable everywhere, had been abolished.

Nothing could have been milder than this {231} presentation of a

well-known fact; but it raised a furious storm. The constitutional

rights of Ireland! Was the man mad? The book was denounced in

Parliament as libellous and seditious, and was destroyed by the common

hangman. Then Dean Swift, half-Irishman and more than half-Englishman,

an ardent High-Churchman and a vehement anti-papist, published a

satirical pamphlet called "A Modest Proposal," in which he suggests

that the children of the Irish peasants should be reared for food, and

the choicest ones reserved for the landlords, who having already

devoured the substance of the fathers, had the best right to feast upon

their children. This was made the more pungent because it came from a

man who so far from being an Irish patriot, was an English Tory. He

cared little for Ireland or its people, but he hated tyranny and

injustice; and was stirred to a fierce wrath at what he himself

witnessed while Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. Then it was

that with tremendous scorn he hurled those shafts of biting wit and

satire, which struck deeper than the cogent reasoning of the gentle and

philosophic Molyneux.

{232}

So the spell of silence was broken, and there began to form a small

patriotic party in Parliament, which in 1760 was led by Henry Flood,

from Kilkenny. A day was dawning after the long night; and when in

1775 Henry Grattan's more powerful personality was joined with Flood's,

then that brief day had reached its highest noon. Next to that of

Edmund Burke, Grattan's is the greatest name on the roll of native-born

Irishmen. Happy was that country in having such an advocate and guide

at the critical period when the American colonies were throwing off the

yoke of English tyranny. The wrongs suffered by the English colonies

in America were trifling compared with those endured by that other

English colony in Ireland. If ever there was a time to press upon

England the necessity for loosening their shackles it was now, when

their battle was being fought across the sea. Every argument in

support of the independence of America applied with equal force to the

legislative independence of Ireland. It was Grattan who at this

momentous time guided the course of events. A Protestant, yet

possessing the entire confidence of the Catholics; {233} an

uncompromising patriot, yet commanding the respect and admiration of

the English Government; inflexibly opposed to Catholic exclusion and

the ascendancy of a Protestant minority, and as inflexibly opposed to

any act of violence, he was determined to obtain redress--but to obtain

it only by means of the strictest constitutional methods. It was upon

the _constitutionality_ of their claims that he threw all the energy of

the movement growing out of the American war. His personal sympathies

were with the struggling colonists; yet he voted for men and money to

sustain the English cause. Equal rights bestowed upon Catholics, who

were in large majority, would transfer to them the power; yet he, a

Protestant, passionately advocated a removal of the disabilities of

four-fifths of the people. It was in this spirit of wise moderation

and even-handed justice that Grattan took the tangled web of the Irish

cause out of the hands of the more impetuous Flood; his eloquence and

his moving appeals keeping two objects steadily in view--the

independence of the Irish Parliament, and the removal of the fetters

from Irish trade.

{234}

Times had changed since Molyneux's gentle remonstrance, when Grattan's

famous Declaration of Rights was being supported by eighteen counties,

and still more changed when at last, in 1782, an Irish House of Commons

marched in a body to present to the Lord Lieutenant their address

demanding freedom of commerce and manufacture.

An unlooked-for train of events had given new weight to this demand.

England had realized the necessity of protecting Ireland from a

possible invasion growing out of the American war. So it was

determined that a body of militia should be levied, in which only

Protestants should be enrolled. The attempt to raise the men or the

money in Ireland was a failure, and while defenceless, the country was

thrown into a panic by the descent of Paul Jones, the American naval

hero, upon Belfast and other points on the coast. The citizens of

Belfast enrolled themselves for their own defence. Other towns

followed, and the contagion spread with such rapidity that in a short

time there was in existence a volunteer force of 60,000 men.

Dismayed at the swiftness of the movement, England hesitated; but how

could she {235} deny her colony the right of self-defence? They were

given the arms which had been intended for the Protestant militia. And

so, when the House of Commons marched in a body to the Lord Lieutenant,

and presented their address to the Crown, it had 60,000 armed men

behind it!

The Viceroy wrote to England that unless the trade restrictions were

removed, he would not answer for the consequences. Lord North had

enough to do with one rebellion on his hands; and, besides, George III.

might have need of some of those 60,000 soldiers before he got through

with America. So the Prime Minister yielded. The first victory was

gained, and the other quickly followed. American independence was

acknowledged; England was in no mood to defy another colony with

rebellion in its heart. The Poynings Act once more, and now for all

time, was repealed, and the Irish Parliament was a free and independent

body. Grateful for this partial emancipation, it voted L100,000 to

Grattan.

But this legislative triumph did not feed the people. It was only the

seed out of which future prosperity was to grow. A vague expectation

of instant relief was {236} bitterly disappointed when it was found

instead that they were sinking deeper every day in the hopeless abyss

of poverty and degradation. There had come into existence an

organization called the "White Boys," with no political or religious

purpose, simply a fraternity of wretchedness; beings made desperate by

want, standing ready to commit any violence which offered relief. At

the same time an irritation born of misery brought the Protestants and

Catholics in the North into fierce collision; and the germ of the

future Orange societies appeared.

These small storm-centres were all soon to be drawn into a larger one.

In 1791 the "Society of United Irishmen" was formed at Belfast. It was

merely a patriotic attempt to sink minor differences in an organization

in which all could join. With the rising of the general tide of misery

it changed in character, and fell into the control of a band of

restless spirits led by Wolfe Tone, who maintained that since

constitutional reforms had failed, force must be their resort. He sent

agents to Paris, and the new French republic consented to assist in an

attempt to establish a republic in Ireland.

{237}

When the year 1798 closed, there had been another unsuccessful

rebellion. Ferocity had been met by ferocity, and Wolfe Tone and

Edward Fitzgerald (a Geraldine) had perished in the ruin of the

structure they had wildly built. Flood and Grattan had stood aloof

from this miserable undertaking. It was now eighteen years since the

constitutional triumph which had proved so barren. England was in

stern mood. Pitt had long believed that the effacement of the Irish

Parliament and a legislative union of the two countries was the only

solution. The Irish Protestants were shown the benefits of the

protection this would afford them, while the bait offered to the

Catholics was emancipation, the removal of disabilities which it was

intimated would quickly follow. But no one was won to the cause,

Grattan, in the most impassioned way protesting against it, and the

measure was defeated. Then followed the darkest page in the chapter.

It is well known that large amounts of money were paid to the owners of

eighty-five doubtful boroughs--boroughs which would be effaced by the

union--that peerages and {238} baronetcies were generously distributed,

and that shortly after, the measure was again brought up and carried!

So by the Act of Union, 1800, the Irish Parliament had ceased to exist,

and the two countries were politically merged. It is certain that the

union was hateful to the Irish people, and that it was tainted by the

suspicion of dishonorable methods, which one hundred years have failed

to disprove. It may have been the best thing possible, under the

circumstances, for Ireland; but to the Irish patriots it seemed a

crowning act of oppression accomplished by treachery.

You cannot combine oil and water by pouring them into one glass. The

union was not a union. The natures of the two races were utterly

hostile. Centuries of cruel wrong and outrage had accentuated every

undesirable trait in the Irish people. A nature simple, confiding,

spontaneous, and impulsive, had become suspicious, explosive, and

dangerous. Pugnacity had grown into ferocity. A joyous,

light-hearted, and engaging people had become a sullen and vindictive

one; famine, misery, and ignorance had put their stamp of degradation

{239} upon the peasantry, the majority of the people. Intermarriage,

so savagely interdicted for centuries, was the only thing which could

ever have fused two such contrasting races. Such a fusion might have

benefited both, in giving a wholesome solidity to the Irish, while the

stolid English would have been enriched by the fascinating traits and

the native genius of their brilliant neighbors. But the opportunity

had been lost; and enlightened English statesmanship is still seeking

for a plan which will convert an unnatural and artificial union into a

real one.

The delusive promises of the relief which was to come with union were

not fulfilled. Catholics remained under the same monstrous ban as

before, and things were practically unchanged. Young Robert Emmett's

abortive attempt to seize Dublin Castle in 1803 intensified conditions,

but did not alter them. The pathetic story of his capture while

seeking a parting interview with Sarah Curran, to whom he was engaged,

and his death by hanging the following morning, is one of the smaller

tragedies in the greater one; and the death of Sarah {240} from a

broken heart, soon after, is the subject of Moore's well-known lines.

The most colossal figure in the story of Ireland had now appeared.

Daniel O'Connell, unlike the other great leaders, was a Catholic. In

the language of another, "he was the incarnation of the Irish nation."

All that they were, he was, on a majestic scale. His whole tremendous

weight was thrown into the subject of Catholic emancipation; and,

although a giant in eloquence and in power, it took him just

twenty-nine years to accomplish it. In the year 1829, even Wellington,

that incarnation of British conservatism, bent his head before the

storm, and there was a full and unqualified removal of Catholic

disabilities. O'Connell was not content; he did not pause. The

tithe-system, that most odious of oppressions, must go. A starving

nation compelled to support in its own land a Church it considered

blasphemous! A standing army kept in their land to wring this tribute

from them at the point of the bayonet! Think of a people on the brink

of the greatest famine Europe has ever known, being in arrears a

million and a quarter of pounds for tithes {241} for an Established

Church they did not want! Is it strange that Sydney Smith said no

abuse as great could be found in Timbuctoo? Is it a wonder that there

was always disorder and violence from a chronic tithe-war in Ireland,

which it is said has cost a million of lives? But in 1839, in the

second year of Queen Victoria's reign, Parliament gave relief, in the

following ingenious way. The burden was placed upon the _land_; the

landlord must pay the tithe, not the people! The exasperation which

followed took a form with which we are all more or less familiar. With

the increase in rents which, of course, ensued, there commenced an

anti-rent agitation which has never ceased. A repeal of the Union was

the only remedy, and to this O'Connell devoted all his energies.

In 1845, in one black night, a blight fell upon the potato-crop.

Carlyle says "a famine presupposes much." What must be the economic

condition of a people when there is only one such frail barrier between

them and starvation! The famine was the hideous child of centuries.

There is no need to dwell upon its details. Its name expresses all the

horror of those two years, when Europe and {242} America strove in vain

to relieve the famishing nation, even those who had food, dying, it is

said, from the mental anguish produced by witnessing so much suffering

which they could not assuage. The great O'Connell himself died of a

broken heart in beholding this national tragedy. When it was over,

Ireland had lost two millions of its population. Thousands had

perished and thousands more had emigrated from the doomed land to

America, there to keep alive, in the hearts of their children, the

memory of their wrongs.

Out of this wreck and ruin there arose the party of "Young Ireland,"

led, with more or less wisdom, by Mitchell, Smith O'Brien (descended

from Brian Boru), Dillon, and Meagher. Mitchell was soon transported,

and later O'Brien and Meagher were under sentence of death, which was

afterward commuted, Meagher surviving to lay down his life for the

North in the civil war in America. It is not strange that these men

were driven to futile insurrections, maddened as they were by the sight

of their countrymen, not yet emerged from the horrors of famine, forced

in droves out of the shelter of their {243} miserable cabins, for

non-payment of rent. It has been told in foregoing pages how it came

about that absentee English landlords owned a great part of Ireland.

From this had arisen the custom of subletting; and when it is known

that sometimes four people stood between the tenant and the landlord,

it will be realized how difficult it was to place responsibility, to do

justice, or to show mercy in such an iniquitous system. It was the

system, not the landlord, that was vicious. Eviction has done as much

as famine to depopulate Ireland. It has driven millions of Irishmen

into America; and the cruelty and even ferocity with which it has been

carried out cannot be overstated. Whatever the weather, for the sick,

or even for the dying, there was no pity. Out they must go; and to

make sure that they would not return, the cabin was unroofed! And

then, if the wretched being died under the stars by the road-side, he

might, in the words of Mitchell, "lift his dying eyes and thank God

that he perished under the best constitution in the world!"

At the close of the American civil war it was believed by Irishmen that

the strained {244} relations between England and America would lead to

open conflict. An organization named Fenians (after the ancient Feni)

formed a plan for a rising in Ireland, which was to be simultaneous

with a raid into Canada by way of America.

The United States Government took vigorous action in the matter of the

Canadian raid, and the failure of this and of other violent attempts at

home put an end to the least creditable of all such organizations.

It was in 1869 that Mr. Gladstone realized his long-cherished plan for

the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland. The generations which

had hoped and striven for this had passed away, and in the Ireland

which remained, there was scarcely spirit enough left to rejoice over

anything. The words Home Rule were the only ones with power to arouse

hope. With the Liberal Party on their side, this seemed possible of

attainment. In 1875 Charles Parnell entered the House of Commons and

became the leader of a Home Rule Party. But the question of evictions,

of which there had been 10,000 in four years, became so pressing, that

he organized a National Land League, which {245} had for its object the

relief of present distress, and the substitution of

peasant-proprietorship for the existing landlord system; an agrarian

scheme, or dream, to which Mr. Parnell devoted the rest of his life.

Mr. Parnell's weapons were parliamentary. He introduced an obstructive

method in legislation which caused extreme irritation and finally

antagonism between the Liberal Party and his own. This, together with

the unfounded suspicion of complicity in the murder of Lord Frederick

Cavendish, in 1882, militated against Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Act,

which was defeated in 1886; and the cause awaited another champion.

But while the door bearing the alluring words "Home Rule" still remains

rigidly closed, another has unexpectedly opened. One of the first

subjects to engage the attention of King Edward VII. after his

accession was the settlement of the Irish agrarian question which that

practical Monarch recognized as the most essential to the pacification

of his Irish subjects. This has {246} resulted in an ingeniously

devised system of peasant-proprietorship, which is made possible by

Government aid, in money and credit. The New Land Act, embodying this

result, went into effect November 1, 1903, whereby tenants,

sub-tenants, or people who are not tenants may purchase land in small

lots and hold it as _their own_, by the payment of a small annual

rental which applies to the purchase. It is impossible to give here

the complicated details which insure this result with benefit to

landlord, tenant, and also to the Government itself. But a remedy

seems to have been found which accomplishes all this; and the

condition, more demoralizing to Irish life and character than any

other, has been removed. With the sense of peace and permanence, and

even of dignity, which comes from proprietorship it is hoped a new day

is dawning for the peasantry of that unhappy country.

It has been Ireland's misfortune to be geographically allied to one of

the greatest {247} European Powers. She has been fighting for

centuries against the "despotism of fact." She has never once loosened

the grasp fastened upon her in 1171; never had control of her capital

city, which, built by the Northmen, has been the home of her political

masters ever since. Of course everyone knows that when the English

Government solemnly doubts the capacity of the Irish people for Home

Rule, its solicitude is for England, not Ireland.

Francis Meagher, when on trial for his life, said: "If I have committed

a crime, it is because I have read the history of Ireland!" One need

not be an Irish patriot to be in rebellion against the English rule in

that land; and no Protestant can read without shame and indignation the

crimes which have been committed in the name of his Church.

But, in view of the small results of more than eight centuries of

resistance, would it not be wise for the Irish people to abandon the

fight against the "despotism of fact," {248} to give up the attitude of

a conquered people with rebellion in their hearts? Is not this the

right moment, when England is manifesting a desire to be more just, for

Ireland, deeply injured although she is, to accept the olive branch,

and call a truce?

{249}

A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.

The northern extremity of the British Isles, bristling with mountains

and with its ragged coast-line deeply fringed by the sea, told in

advance the character of its people. Scotland is the child of the

mountains; and in spite of all that has been done to change their

native character, the word Caledonia still invokes the same

picturesque, liberty-loving race which in the first century, under the

name of Picts, defied Agricola and his Roman legions, and the wall they

had builded. If they have borrowed their name from Ireland, if they

have used the speech and consented to wear the political yoke of the

Anglo-Saxon, they have accepted these things only as convenient

garments for a proud Scottish nationality, which has defied all efforts

to change its essential character.

About four centuries after the Roman invasion, a colony of Scots

(Irish) migrated to {250} the opposite coast, under Fergus, and set up

their little kingdom in Argyleshire, taking with them, perhaps, the

sacred "Stone of Destiny" upon which a long line of Irish kings had

been crowned, and which tradition asserts was "Jacob's Pillow." The

Picts and the Irish Scots were both of the Celtic race, and if they

fought, it was as brothers do, ready in an instant to embrace and make

common cause, which they first did against the Romans. A common enemy

is the surest healer of domestic feuds, and there were many of these to

bring together the two Celtic branches dwelling on the same soil after

the fifth century. Then came the more peaceful fusion through a common

religious faith. St. Columba had been preceded by St. Nimian. But it

was the Irish saint from Donegal who did for the Picts what St. Patrick

had done for the Irish Scots. In the history of the Church there has

never been an awakening of purer spiritual ardor than that which

irradiated from Columba's monastery at Iona.

Why the Irish Scots, occupying only a small bit of territory, should

have fastened their name upon the land of their adoption {251} is not

known. Perhaps it was the magic of that Stone of Destiny! The Picts

had the political centre of their kingdom at Scone, on the river Tay.

It was in 844 that Kenneth M'Alpin made war upon the Irish Scots, the

little kingdom in Argyle was merged with that of the Picts, and by the

eleventh century the latter name had disappeared and the name Scotland

was applied to the whole country. In the two centuries following this

union there were four reigns, in which wars between hostile clans were

diversified by wars with invading Danes, and with the Angles near the

border, with whom there was a chronic struggle, caused by aggressions

upon both sides. Malcolm II. succeeded in defeating the Angles on the

Tweed, seized Lothian, incorporated this bit of old England with his

own kingdom, then died, in 1034, leaving his throne to his grandson,

Duncan. There was the same play of fierce ambitions upon this small

stage as on larger ones. Scottish thanes strove to undermine and

supplant other thanes, just as Norman barons and Scotch-English earls

would do later, and as in other lands and at all times, the dream of

aspiring, intriguing nobles {252} was by some happy chance to snatch

the crown and reign at Scone.

Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, was by birth nearest to the supreme

prize. His wife, whose "undaunted mettle" we all know, had royal blood

in her veins. We also know how the poison of ambition worked in the

once guiltless soul of the thane after the prophecy of the "Weird

Sisters" had commenced its fulfilment. The story was quaintly told a

century before Shakespeare lived, in a history of Scotland by Boece.

The book was written in Latin, and in the sixteenth century was

translated into the Scottish vernacular. It tells of the meeting

between Macbeth, Banquo, and the "Weird Sisters." "The first of thaim

said, 'Hale, Thane of Glammis!' the secound said, 'Hale, Thane of

Cawder!' and the thrid said, 'Hale, King of Scotland!' Then Banquo

said, 'How is it ye gaif to my companyeon not onlie landis and gret

rentis, bot Kingdomes, and gevis me nocht?' To which they reply,

'Thoucht he happin to be ane King, nane of his blude sall eftir him

succeid. Be contrar, thow sail nevir be King, bot of the sal cum mony

Kingis, quhilkis {253} sall rejose the Croun of Scotland!' Then they

evanist out of sicht." This seems to have amused the two friends and

"Fur sam time Banquho wald call Makbeth 'King of Scottis' for

derisioun; and he on the samin maner wald call Banquho 'the fader of

mony Kingis!' Yit, not long efter, it hapnit that the Thane of Cawder

was disinherist and forfaltit of his landis for certane crimes; and his

landis wer gevin be King Duncane to Makbeth. It hapnit in the nixt

nicht that Banquho and Makbeth were sportand togiddir at thair supper,"

and Banquo reminded his friend that there remained only the Crown to

complete the prophecy. Whereupon, "he began to covat the crown." And

then Duncan named his young son Malcolm as his heir, "Quhilk wes gret

displeseir to Makbeth; for it maid plane derogatioun to the thrid

weird," promising him the Crown. "Nochtheless, he thocht, gif Duncane

war slane, he had maist richt to the Croun, be the old lawis of King

Fergus (law of tanistry), becaus he wer nerest of blude thair to," the

text of the old law being, "Quhen young children wer unabil to govern,

the nerrest of thair blude sail regne." Then, {254} when his wife

"calland him oft times, febil cowart, sen he durst not assail ye thing

with manheid and enrage, quhilk is offert to him be benivolence of

fortoun," then, so tempted and so goaded, "Makbeth fand sufficient

opportunite, and slew King Duncane, the VII yeir of his regne, and his

body was buryit in Elgin, and efter tane up and brocht to Colmekill,

quhare it remanis yit, amang the uthir Kingis: fra our Redemption.

MXLVI yeris."

The story told in these quaint words was, without any doubt, read by

Shakespeare, and in the alembic of his imagination grew into the

immortal play. Touched by his genius, the names Dunsinnane and Birnam,

lying close to Scone, are luminous points on the map, upon which the

eye loves to linger. The incidents may not be authentic. We are told

they are not. But Macbeth certainly slew Duncan and was King of

Scotland, and finally met his Nemesis at Dunsinnane, near Birnam Wood,

where Malcolm III., called Canmore, avenged his father's death, slew

the usurper, and was crowned king at Scone, 1054.

The historic point selected by Shakespeare {255} has an important

significance of a different sort. It was the dividing line between the

old and the new. Macbeth's reign marks the close of the Celtic period.

With the advent of Malcolm III., there commenced that infusion of

Teutonic political ideals which was destined at last to merge the

Anglo-Saxon and the Scottish Celt into one political organism.

Malcolm's mother was the sister of the Earl of Northumberland. So the

son of Duncan was half-English; and he became more than half-English

when, somewhat later, he married Margaret, sister of his friend and

guest, "Edgar the Atheling," last claimant of the Saxon throne, who had

taken refuge with him while vainly plotting against William the

Conqueror. This was in 1067, the year after the conquest. So at this

critical period in English history, the door leading to the South,

which had until now been kept bolted and barred, except for hostile

bands, was left ajar. A host of Saxon nobles, following their leader,

Edgar, streamed into Scotland, and soon formed the most powerful

element about the throne, bringing new speech, new ways, new customs;

in fact, doing at Scone precisely what the Norman {256} nobles were at

the same time doing at London, substituting a more advanced

civilization for an existing one. The manners of the Norman nobles

were not more odious to the Saxon nobility in England, than were those

of the Saxons to the proud thanes and people in Scotland. Then Malcolm

began to bestow large grants of land upon his foreign favorites,

accompanied by an almost unlimited authority over their vassals, and

feudalism was introduced into the free land. With these changes there

gradually formed a dialect, a mingling of the two forms of speech,

which became the language of the Court, and of the powerful dwellers in

the Lowlands. And so, in succeeding reigns, the process of blending

went on, the wave of a changed civilization driving before it the

Celtic speech, manners, and habits, into their impregnable fastnesses

in the Highlands, there to preserve the national type in proud

persistence. Such was the condition for one hundred and fifty years,

the Crown in open alliance with aliens, subverting established usages

and fastening an exotic feudalism upon the South; while an angry and

defiant Celtic people remained unsubdued in the North.

{257}

It was a favorite amusement with the Scottish kings to dart across the

border into Northumbria, the disputed district, not yet incorporated

with England, there to waste and burn as much as they could, and then

back again. In one of these forays in 1174, the King, "William the

Lion," was captured by a party of English barons. Henry II. of England

had just returned from Ireland, where he had established his feudal

sovereignty by conquest. Now he saw a chance of accomplishing the same

thing by peaceful methods in Scotland. He named as a price of ransom

for the captive King an acknowledgment of his feudal lordship. The

terms were accepted, and the five castles which they included were

surrendered. Fifteen years later, his son Richard I., the romantic

crusader, gave back to Scotland her castles and her independence. But

what had been done once, would be tried again. So while it was the

steady policy of the English sovereigns to reduce Scotland to a state

of vassalage to England, it was the no less steady aim of the Scottish

kings to extend their own feudal authority to the Highlands and the

islands in the north and west of their own realm, {258} where an

independent people had never yet been brought under its subjection.

In the year 1286 Alexander III. died, and only an infant granddaughter

survived to wear the crown. The daughter of the deceased King had

married the King of Norway, and dying soon after, had left an infant

daughter. It was about this babe that the diplomatic threads

immediately began to entwine. A regency of six nobles was appointed to

rule the kingdom. Then Edward I. of England proposed a marriage

between his own infant son and the little maid. The proposition was

accepted. A ship was sent to Norway to bring the baby Queen to

Scotland, bearing jewels and gifts from Edward; but just before she

reached the Orkneys the "Maid of Norway" died. Edward's plans were

frustrated, and the empty throne of Scotland had many claimants, but

none with paramount right to the succession. In the wrangle which

ensued, when eight ambitious nobles were trying to snatch the prize,

Edward I. intervened to settle the dispute, which had at last narrowed

down to one between two competitors, Bruce and Baliol, both lineally

descended from King David I.

{259}

But the important fact in this mediatorial act of Edward was, that it

was done by virtue of his authority as Over-Lord of Scotland. We are

left to imagine how and why such a monstrous and baseless pretension

was acknowledged without a single protest. But when we reflect that

the eager claimants and their upholders represented, not the people of

Scotland but an aristocratic ruling element, more than half-English

already, it is not so strange that they were willing to pay this price

for the sake of restoring peace and security at a time when everything

was imperilled by an empty throne. There was no organic unity in

Scotland; only a superficial unity, created by the name of king, which

fell into chaos when that name was withdrawn. It was imperative that

someone should be crowned at Scone at once. And so, when Edward, by

virtue of his authority as Over-Lord, gave judgment in favor of John

Baliol, without a single remonstrance Baliol was crowned John I. at

Scone, rendered homage to his feudal lord, and Scotland was a vassal

kingdom (1292). This whole proceeding, thus disposing of the state,

had in no way recognized the existence of a nation. {260} It was an

arrangement between the Scottish nobles and clergy, and the King of

England. When the heralds had, with great ceremony, proclaimed King

Edward Lord Paramount of Scotland, the matter was supposed to be ended,

and it was forgotten that there was beyond the Grampians a proud

people, whose will would have to be broken before their country would

become the _fief_ of an English king. But Baliol soon discovered how

empty was the honor he had purchased. There was now a right of appeal

from the Scottish Parliament and courts to those of Edward I. Such

appeals were made, and King John I. was with scant ceremony summoned to

London to plead his own cause before a Parliament which humiliated and

insulted him.

In 1295, so intolerable had his position become, that Baliol threw off

the yoke of vassalage, secured an alliance with France, and gathered

such of his nobles as he could about him, prepared to resist the

authority of Edward; whereupon that enraged King marched into the

rebellious land, swept victoriously from one city to another, gathering

up towns and castles by the way; then took the {261} sacred Stone of

Destiny from Scone as a memorial of his conquest, and left the penitent

vassal King helpless and forlorn in his humiliated kingdom. It was

then that the famous stone was built into the coronation-chair, where

it still remains.

We have now come to a name which, as Wordsworth says, is "to be found

like a wild flower, all over his dear country." Everywhere there are

places sacred to his memory. The story of Wallace is a brief one--an

impassioned resolve to free his enslaved country, one supreme triumph,

then defeat, an ignominious and cruel death in London, to be followed

by imperishable renown for himself, and for Scotland--freedom. Sir

William Wallace belonged to the lower class of Scotch nobility. He had

never sworn allegiance to Edward I. His career of outlawry commenced

by his making small attacks upon small English posts. As his successes

increased, so did his followers, until so formidable had the movement

become, that Edward learned there was a rising in his vassal kingdom.

But it could not be much, he thought, as he had all the nobles, and how

could there be a rising {262} without nobles? So he despatched a small

force to straighten things out. But a few weeks later, Edward himself

was in Scotland with an army. Wallace was besieging the Castle of

Dundee, when he heard that the King was marching on Stirling. With the

quick instinct of the true military leader, he saw his opportunity. He

reached the rising ground commanding the bridge of Stirling, while the

English army of 50,000 were still on the opposite side of the river.

When the English general, seeing his disadvantage, offered to make

terms, Wallace replied that his terms were "the freedom of Scotland."

The attack made as they were crossing the bridge resulted in the panic

of the English and a rout in which the greater part of the fleeing army

was slain and drowned (1297). Baliol had been swept from the scene and

was in the Tower of London, so Wallace was supreme. But in less than a

year Edward had returned with an army overwhelming in numbers, and

Wallace met a crushing defeat at Falkirk. We next hear of him on the

Continent, still planning for Scotland's liberation, then hunted and

finally caught in Glasgow, dragged to London in chains, {263} there to

be tried and condemned for treason. Had they condemned him as a rebel

and an outlaw there would have been justice, for these he was. But a

traitor he never was, for he had never sworn allegiance to Edward. He

had fought against the invaders of his country, and for this he died a

felon's death, with all the added cruelties of Norman law. He was

first tortured, then executed in a way to strike terror to the souls of

similar offenders (1304). But his work was accomplished. He had

lighted the fires of patriotism in Scotland. The power of his name to

stir the hearts of his people like a trumpet-blast, is best described

by the words of Robert Burns: "The story of Wallace poured a Scottish

prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the

flood-gates of life shut, in eternal rest." To be praised by the bards

was the supreme reward of Celtic heroes. What did death matter, in

form however terrible, to one who was to be so remembered nearly five

centuries later by Scotland's greatest bard?

We are accustomed to regard the name of Bruce as the intensest

expression of a Scottish nationality, and of its aspirations {264}

toward liberty. But it had no such meaning at this time. The ancestor

of the family was Robert de Bruis, a Norman knight who came over with

the Conqueror. His son, Robert, was one of those hated foreign

adventurers at the Court of David I., and received from that King a

large grant and the Lordship of Annandale. The grandson of this first

Earl of Annandale married Isabel, the granddaughter of David I., and so

it was that the house of Bruce came into the line of royal succession.

It was Robert, the son of Isabel, who competed with Baliol for the

throne of Scotland.

Robert Bruce, who stands forth as the greatest character in Scottish

history, was twelve years old when his grandfather was defeated by

Baliol in this competition. No family in the vassal kingdom was more

trusted by England's King, nor more friendly to his pretensions. The

young Robert's father had accompanied King Edward to Palestine in his

own youth, and he himself was being trained at the English Court. His

English mother had large estates in England, and, in fact there was

everything to bind him to the King's cause. He and his father, {265}

and the High Steward of Scotland, together with other Scottish-Norman

nobles, had been with the King in his triumphal march through Scotland

when Baliol was dethroned, and at the time of the rising under Wallace,

Robert Bruce had not one thing in common with him or his cause. And as

for the people in the Highlands, if he ever thought of them at all, it

was as troublesome malcontents, who needed to be ruled with a strong

hand. Wallace was in rebellion against an established authority, to

which all his own antecedents reconciled him. How the change was

wrought, how his bold and ardent spirit came to its final resolve, we

can only surmise. Was it through a complicated struggle of forces, in

which ambition played the greatest part? Or did the splendid heroism

of Wallace, and the spirit it evoked in the people, awaken a slumbering

patriotism in his own romantic soul? Or was it the prescience of a

leader and statesman, who saw in this newly developed popular force an

opportunity for a double triumph, the emancipation of Scotland, and the

realization of his own kingship?

Whatever the process, a change was going {266} on in his soul. He

wavered, sometimes inclining to the party of Wallace, and sometimes to

that of the King, until the year 1304. In that year, the very one in

which Wallace died, he made a secret compact with the Bishop of

Lamberton, pledging mutual help against any opponents. While at the

Court of Edward, shortly after this, he discovered that the King had

learned of this compromising paper. There was nothing left but flight.

He mounted his horse and swiftly returned to Scotland. Now the die was

cast. His only competitor for the throne was Comyn. They met to

confer over some plan of combination, and in a dispute which arose,

Bruce slew his rival. Whether it was premeditated, or in the heat of

passion, who could say? But Comyn was the one obstacle to his purpose,

and he had slain him, had slain the highest noble in the state! All of

England, and now much of Scotland, would be against him; but he could

not go back. He resolved upon a bold course. He went immediately to

Scone, ascended the throne, and surrounded by a small band of

followers, was crowned King of Scotland, March 27, 1306. He soon

learned {267} the desperate nature of the enterprise upon which he had

embarked. There was nothing in his past to inspire the confidence of

the patriots at the North, and at the South he was pursued with

vindictive fury by the friends of the slain Comyn. Edward, stirred as

never before, was preparing for an invasion, issuing proclamations; no

mercy to be shown to the rebels. Bruce's English estates, inherited

from his mother, were confiscated, and an outlaw and a fugitive, he was

excommunicated by the Pope! Unable to meet the forces sent by Edward,

he placed his Queen in the care of a relative and then disappeared,

wandering in the Highlands, hiding for one whole winter on the coast of

Ireland and supposed to be dead. His Queen and her ladies were torn

from their refuge and his cousin hanged.

Had Robert Bruce died at this time he would have been remembered not as

a patriot, but as an ambitious noble who perished in a desperate

attempt to make himself king. But his undaunted soul was working out a

different ending to the story. In the spring of 1307 he returned

undismayed. With a small band of followers he met an English {268}

army, defeated the Earl of Pembroke at Ayr, and with this success the

tide turned. The people caught the contagion of his intrepid spirit,

and in the seven years which followed, he shines out as one of the

great captains of history. By the year 1313 every castle save Berwick

and Stirling had surrendered to him. Vast preparations were made in

England for the defence of this latter stronghold.

It was on the burn (stream) two miles from Stirling that Bruce

assembled his 30,000 men, and made his plans to meet Edward with his

100,000. On the morning of the 23d of June, 1314, he exhorted his

Scots to fight for their liberty. How they did it, the world will

never forget! And while Scotland endures, and as long as there are

Scotsmen with warm blood coursing in their veins, they will never cease

to exult at the name Bannockburn! Thirty thousand English fell upon

the field. Twenty-seven barons and two hundred knights, and seven

hundred squires were lying in the dust, and twenty-two barons and sixty

knights were prisoners. Never was there a more crushing defeat.

{269}

Still England refused to acknowledge the independence of the kingdom,

and Bruce crossed the border with his army. The Pope was appealed to

by Edward, and issued a pacifying bull in 1317, addressed to "Edward,

King of England," and "the noble Robert de Bruis, conducting himself as

King of Scotland." Bruce declined to accept it until he was addressed

as King of Scotland, and then proceeded to capture Berwick. The

Scottish Parliament sent an address to the Pope, from which a few

interesting extracts are here made:

"It has pleased God to restore us to liberty, by one most valiant

Prince and King, Lord Robert, who has undergone all manner of toil,

fatigue, hardship, and hazard. To him we are resolved to adhere in all

things, both on account of his merit, and for what he has done for us.

But, if this Prince should leave those principles he has so nobly

pursued, and consent that we be subjected to the King of England, we

will immediately expel him as our enemy, and will choose another king,

for as long as one hundred of us remain alive, we will never be subject

to the English. For it is not glory, nor riches, {270} nor honor, but

it is liberty alone, that we contend for, which no honest man will lose

but with his life."

The spirit manifested in this had its effect, and the Pope consented to

address Bruce by his title, "King of Scotland." After delaying the

evil day as long as possible, England at last, in 1328, concluded a

treaty recognizing Scotland as an independent kingdom, in which

occurred these words: "And we renounce whatever claims we or our

ancestors in bygone times have laid in any way over the kingdom of

Scotland."

Concerning the character of Robert Bruce, historians are not agreed.

To fathom his motives would have been difficult at the time; how much

more so then after six centuries. We only know that he leaped into an

arena from which nature and circumstances widely separated him, gave a

free Scotland to her people, and made himself the hero of her great

epic.