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[Illustration: Thomas Davis]
THOMAS DAVIS
Selections from his Prose and Poetry
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY T. W. ROLLESTON, M.A.
NEW YORK:
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Library of Irish Literature
_General Editors_: ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES, M.A.
WILLIAM MAGENNIS, M.A. DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D.
(Dublin).
1. Thomas Davis. Selections from his Prose and Poetry.
Edited by T. W. ROLLESTON, M.A. (Dublin).
2. Wild Sports of the West. W. H. MAXWELL.
Edited by THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN.
3. Legends of Saints and Sinners from the Irish.
Edited by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D. (Dublin).
4. Humours of Irish Life.
Edited by CHARLES L. GRAVES, M.A. (Oxon).
5. Irish Orators and Oratory.
Edited by T. M. KETTLE, National University of Ireland.
6. The Book of Irish Poetry.
Edited by ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES, M.A. (Dublin).
Other Volumes in Preparation. Each Crown 8vo. Cloth,
with Frontispiece net $1.00
INTRODUCTION.
In the present edition of Thomas Davis it is designed to offer a
selection of his writings more fully representative than has hitherto
appeared in one volume. The book opens with the best of his historical
studies--his masterly vindication of the much-maligned Irish Parliament
of James II.[1] Next follows a selection of his literary, historical
and political articles from _The Nation_ and other sources, and,
finally, we present a selection from his poems, containing, it is
hoped, everything of high and permanent value which he wrote in that
medium. The "Address to the Historical Society" and the essay on
"Udalism and Feudalism," which were reprinted in the edition of Davis's
Prose Writings published by Walter Scott in 1890, are here omitted--the
former because it seemed possible to fill with more valuable and mature
work the space it would have taken, and the latter because the cause
which it was written to support has in our day been practically won;
Udalism will inevitably be the universal type of land-tenure in
Ireland, and the real problem which we have before us is not how to win
but how to make use of the institution, a matter with which Davis, in
this essay, does not concern himself.
The life of Thomas Davis has been written by his friend and colleague,
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, and an excellent abridgment of it appears as a
volume in the "New Irish Library." In the latter easily available form
it may be hoped that there are few Irishmen who have not made
themselves acquainted with it. It is not, therefore, necessary to deal
with it here in much detail. Davis was born in Mallow on October 14th,
1814. His father, who came of a family originally Welsh, but long
settled in Buckinghamshire, had been a surgeon in the Royal Artillery.
His mother, Mary Atkins, came of a Cromwellian family settled in the
County Cork. It does not seem an altogether hopeful kind of ancestry
for an Irish Nationalist, and his family were, as a matter of fact,
altogether of the other way of thinking. But the fact that his
great-grandmother, on the maternal side, was a daughter of The
O'Sullivan Beare may have had a counteracting influence, if not through
the physical channel of heredity, at least through the poet's
imagination. As a child, Davis was delicate in health, sensitive,
dreamy, awkward, and passed for a dunce. It was not until he had
entered Trinity College that the passion for study possessed him. This
passion had manifestly been kindled, in the first instance, by the
flame of patriotism, but how and when he first came to break loose from
the traditional politics of his family we have no means of knowing,
unless a gleam of light is thrown on the matter by a saying of his from
a speech at Conciliation Hall:--"I was brought up in a mixed seminary,[2]
where I learned to know, and knowing to love, my countrymen."
At the University he sought no academic distinctions, but read
omnivorously. History, philosophy, economics, and ethics were the
subjects into which he flung himself with ardour, and which, in after
days, he was continually seeking to turn to the uses of his country. By
the time he had left College and was called to the Bar (1837) he had
disciplined himself by thought and study, and was a very different
being from the dreamy and backward youth described for us by the candid
friends of his schooldays. A dreamer, indeed, he always was, but he had
learned from Bishop Butler, whom he reverenced profoundly and spoke of
as "the Copernicus of ethics," that there is no practice more fatal to
moral strength than dreaming divorced from action. Some concrete act,
some definite thing to be done, was now always in his mind, but always,
it may be added, as the realisation of some principle arrived at by
serious and accurate thinking. He had acquired clear convictions, his
powers of application were enormous, he had a boundless fertility of
invention, and was manifestly marked out as a leader of men. It is
interesting to go through the pages of Davis's Essays and to note how
many of his practical suggestions for work to be done in Ireland have
been taken up with success, especially in the direction of music and
poetry, of the Gaelic language, and of the study of Irish archaeology
and the protection of its remains. But a new Davis would mark with
keener interest the many tasks which yet remain to be taken in hand.
His connection with the Bar was little more than nominal; from the
beginning, the serious work of his life seemed destined to be
journalism. After some experiments in various directions, he, with
Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon, during a walk in the Phoenix Park in
the spring of 1842, decided to establish a new weekly journal, to be
entitled, on Davis's suggestion, _The Nation_. Its purpose, which it
was afterwards to fulfil so nobly, was admirably expressed in its
motto, taken from a saying of Stephen Woulfe: "To create and foster
public opinion in Ireland, and to make it racy of the soil." Davis's
was the suggestion of making national poems and ballads a prominent
feature of the journal--the feature by which it became best known and
did, perhaps, its most impressive, if not its most valuable, work. His
"Lament for Owen Roe," which appeared in the sixth number, worked in
Ireland like an electric shock, and woke a sleeping faculty to life and
action. Henceforth Davis's public life was bound up with the _Nation_.
Into this channel he threw all his powers. What kind of influence he
exerted from that post of vantage the pages of this book will tell.
Davis was naturally a member of O'Connell's Repeal Association, but
took no prominent part in its proceedings, except on one momentous
occasion on which we must dwell for a while. The debate was on the
subject of Peel's Bill for the establishment of a large scheme of
non-sectarian education in Ireland. Of this measure Sir Charles Duffy
writes:--
"A majority of the Catholic Bishops approved of the general design,
objecting to certain details. All the barristers and country
gentlemen in the Association, and the middle class generally,
supported it. To Davis it was like the unhoped-for realization of a
dream. To educate the young men of the middle class and of both
races, and to educate them together, that prejudice and bigotry
might be killed in the bud, was one of the projects nearest his
heart. It would strengthen the soul of Ireland with knowledge, he
said, and knit the creeds in liberal and trusting friendship."[3]
But O'Connell, though he had previously favoured the principle of mixed
education, now saw a chance of flinging down a challenge to the "Young
Irelanders" from a vantage-ground of immense tactical value. He threw
his whole weight against the proposal, taunted and interrupted its
supporters, and seemed determined at any cost to wreck the measure on
which such high hopes had been set. The emotion which Davis felt, and
which caused him to burst into tears in the midst of the debate, seemed
to some of his friends at the time over-strained. But he was not the
first strong man from whom public calamities have drawn tears; and
assuredly if ever there were cause for tears, Davis had reason to shed
them then. More, perhaps, than any man present, he realised the fateful
nature of the decision which was being made. He knew that one of the
governing facts about Irish public life is the existence in the country
of two races who remain life-long strangers to each other. Catholic and
Protestant present to each other a familiar front, but behind the
surface of each is a dark background which in later life, when
associations, and often prejudices, have been formed, the other can
rarely penetrate and rarely wishes to do so. It was Davis's belief that
if the young people of Ireland were to be permanently segregated from
childhood to manhood in different schools, different universities,
where early friendships, the most intimate and familiar of any, could
never be made, and ideas never interchanged except through public
controversy, the barrier between the two Irish races would be
infinitely difficult to break down, and no scheme of Irish government
could be conceived which would not seem like a triumph to one of them
and bondage to the other. The views of the Young Irelanders did not
prevail, and Ireland as a nation has paid the penalty for two
generations, and will probably pay it for many a day to come. It may,
of course, be argued that religious interests are paramount, and that
these are incompatible with a scheme of mixed education. This is not
the place to debate such a question, nor can anyone quarrel with a
decision arrived at on such grounds. But let it be arrived at with a
clear understanding of the certain consequences, and let it be admitted
that when Davis saw the wreck of the scheme for united education he
felt truly that a long and perhaps, for many generations, irretrievable
step was being taken away from the road to nationhood.
But after this despondent reflection, let us cheer ourselves by setting
the proud and moving words with which Duffy concludes his account of
the transactions in the _Life of Davis_:--
"I have not tacked to any transaction in this narrative the moral
which it suggests; the thoughtful reader prefers to draw his own
conclusions. But for once I ask those to whom this book is
dedicated to note the conduct of Catholic young men in a mortal
contest. The hereditary leader of the people, sure to be backed by
the whole force of the unreflecting masses, and supported on this
occasion by the bulk of the national clergy--a man of genius, an
historic man wielding an authority made august by a life's
services, a solemn moral authority with which it is ridiculous to
compare the purely political influence of anyone who has succeeded
him as a tribune of the people--was against Thomas Davis, and able,
no one doubted, to overwhelm him and his sympathisers in political
ruin. A public career might be closed for all of us; our journal
might be extinguished; we were already denounced as intriguers and
infidels; it was quite certain that, by-and-by, we would be
described as hirelings of the Castle. But Davis was right; and of
all his associates, not one man flinched from his side--not one
man. A crisis bringing character to a sharper test has never arisen
in our history, nor can ever arise; and the conduct of these men,
it seems to me, is some guarantee how their successors would act in
any similar emergency."
The year 1845 was loaded with disaster for Ireland. It saw the defeat
of the Education scheme; it saw the advancing shadow of the awful
calamity in which the Repeal movement, the Young Irelanders, and
everything of hope and promise that lived and moved in Ireland were to
perish--and it saw the death of Thomas Davis.
He had had an attack of scarlet fever, from which he seemed to be
recovering, but a relapse took place--owing, perhaps, to incautious
exposure before his strength had returned--and, in the early dawn of
September 15th, he passed away in his mother's house. The years of his
life were thirty-one; his public life had lasted but for three. His
funeral was marked by an extraordinary outburst of grief and affection,
which was shared by men of all creeds, all classes, all political camps
in Ireland.
No mourning, indeed, could be too deep for the withdrawal at such a
moment of such a leader from the task to which he had consecrated his
life. That task was far more than the winning of political independence
for his country. Davis united in himself, in a degree which has never
been known before or since, the spirit of two great originators in
Irish history--the spirit of Swift and the spirit of Berkeley--of
Swift, the champion of his country against foreign oppression; of
Berkeley, who bade her turn her thoughts inward, who summoned her to
cultivate the faculties and use the liberties she already possessed for
the development of her resources and the strengthening of her national
character. Davis's best and most original work was educative rather
than aggressive. He often wrote, as Duffy says, "in a tone of strict
and haughty discipline designed to make the people fit to use and fit
to enjoy liberty." No one recognised more fully than he the
regenerative value of political forms, but his ideal was never that of
a millennium to be won by Act of Parliament--he was ever on the watch
for some opportunity to remind his countrymen of the indispensable need
of self-discipline and self-reliance, of toil, of veracity, of justice
and fairness towards opponents. No one ever said sharper and sterner
things to the Irish people--witness his articles on "Scolding Mobs," on
"Moral Force," and on the attack upon one of the jurors who had
convicted O'Connell at the State Trial.[4] But Davis could utter hard
things without wounding, for, when all is said, the dominant temper of
the man was love. That, and that alone, was at the very centre of his
being, and by that influence everything that came from him was
irradiated and warmed. He had, as an Irish patriot, unwavering faith,
unquenchable hope; he had also, and above all, the charity which gave
to every other faculty and attainment the supreme, the most enduring
grace.
T. W. ROLLESTON.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This work, with the inclusion of the full text of the more
important of the Acts of the Parliament of James II., and with an
Introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, was reprinted from the
_Dublin Monthly Magazine_ of 1843 by Mr. Fisher Unwin in 1891
as the first volume of the 'New Irish Library.' It is now out of
print.
[2] Mr. Mongan's School on Lower Mount Street.
[3] "Life of Davis," p. 286.
[4] "Life of Davis," pp. 218, 219.
I. The Irish Parliament of James II.
PREFACE.
This enquiry is designed to rescue eminent men and worthy acts from
calumnies which were founded on the ignorance and falsehoods of the Old
Whigs, who never felt secure until they had destroyed the character as
well as the liberty of Ireland.
Irish oppression never could rely on mere physical force for any length
of time. Our enormous military resources, and the large proportion of
"fighting men," or men who love fighting, among our people, prohibit
it. It was ever necessary to divide us by circulating extravagant
stories of our crimes and our disasters, in order to poison the wells
of brotherly love and patriotism in our hearts, that so many of us
might range ourselves under the banner of our oppressor.
Calumny lives chiefly on the past and future; it corrupts history and
croaks dark prophecies. Never, from TYRCONNELL'S rally down to
O'CONNELL'S revival of the Emancipation struggle--never, from the
summons of the Dungannon Convention to the Corporation Debate on
Repeal, has a single bold course been proposed for Ireland, that folly,
disorder, and disgrace has not been foreboded. Never has any great deed
been done here that the alien Government did not, as soon as the facts
became historical, endeavour to blacken the honour of the statesmen,
the wisdom of the legislators, or the valour of the soldiers who
achieved it.
One of the favourite texts of these apostles of misrule was the Irish
Government in King JAMES'S time. "There's a specimen," they said, "of
what an Irish Government would be--unruly, rash, rapacious, and
bloody." But the King, Lords, and Commons of 1689, when looked at
honestly, present a sight to make us proud and hopeful for Ireland.
Attached as they were to their King, their first act was for Ireland.
They declared that the English Parliament had not, and never had, any
right to legislate for Ireland, and that none, save the King and
Parliament of Ireland, could make laws to bind Ireland.
In 1698, just nine years after, while the acts of this great Senate
were fresh, Molyneux published his _case of Ireland_, that case which
Swift argued, and Lucas urged, and Flood and Grattan, at the head of
70,000 Volunteers, carried, and England ratified against her will.
Thus, then, the idea of 1782 is to be found full grown in 1689. The
pedigree of our freedom is a century older than we thought, and Ireland
has another Parliament to be proud of.
That Parliament, too, established religious equality. It anticipated
more than 1782. The voluntary system had no supporters then, and that
patriot Senate did the next best thing: they left the tithes of the
Protestant People to the Protestant Minister, and of the Catholic
People to the Catholic Priest. Pensions not exceeding L200 a year were
given to the Catholic Bishops. And no Protestant Prelates were deprived
of stipend or honour--they held their incomes, and they sat in the
Parliament. They enforced perfect liberty of conscience; nor is there
an Act of theirs which could inform one ignorant of Irish faction to
what creed the majority belonged. Thus for its moderation and charity
this Parliament is an honour and an example to the country.
While on the one hand they restored the estates plundered by the
Cromwellians thirty-six years before, and gave compensation to all
innocent persons--while they strained every nerve to exclude the
English from our trade, and to secure it to the Irish--while they
introduced the Statute of Frauds, and many other sound laws, and thus
showed their zeal for the peaceful and permanent welfare of the People,
they were not unfit to grapple with the great military crisis. They
voted large supplies; they endeavoured to make a war-navy; the leading
members allowed nothing but their Parliamentary duties to interfere
with their recruiting, arming, and training of troops. They were no
timorous pedants, who shook and made homilies when sabres flashed and
cannon roared. Our greatest soldiers, M'Carthy and Tyrconnell, and,
indeed, most of the Colonels of the Irish regiments, sat in Lords or
Commons;--not that the Crown brought in stipendiary soldiers, but that
the Senate were fearless patriots, who were ready to fight as well as
to plan for Ireland. Theirs was no qualified preference for freedom if
it were lightly won--they did not prefer 'Bondage with ease to
strenuous liberty.'
Let us then add 1689 to our memory; and when a Pantheon or Valhalla is
piled up to commemorate the names and guard the effigies of the great
and good, the bright and burning genius, the haughty and faithful
hearts, and the victorious hands of Ireland, let not the men of that
time--that time of glory and misfortune--that time of which Limerick's
two sieges typify the clear and dark sides--defiance and defeat of the
Saxon in one, trust in the Saxon and ruin on the other--let not the
legislators or soldiers of that great epoch be forgotten.
Thomas Davis.
July, 1843.
CHAPTER I.
A RETROSPECT.
How far the Parliament which sat in Dublin in 1689 was right or wrong
has been much disputed. As the history of it becomes more accurately
and generally known, the grounds of this dispute will be cleared.
Nor is it of trifling interest to determine whether a Parliament, which
not only exercised great influence at the time, but furnished the
enactors of the Penal Laws with excuses, and the achievers of the
Revolution of 1782 with principles and a precedent, was the good or
evil thing it has been called.
The writers commonly quoted against it are, Archbishop King, Harris,
Leland; those in its favour, Leslie, Curry, Plowden, and Jones.[5] Of
all these writers, King and Lesley are alone original authorities.
Harris copies King, and Leland copies Harris, and Plowden, Curry, and
Jones rely chiefly on Lesley. Neither Harris, Leland, nor Curry adds
anything to our knowledge of the time. King (notwithstanding, as we
shall show hereafter, his disregard of truth) is valuable as a
contemporary of high rank; Lesley, also a contemporary, and of
unblemished character, is still more valuable. Plowden is a fair and
sagacious commentator; Jones, a subtle and suggestive critic on those
times.
If, in addition, the reader will consult such authorities as the
Letters of Lord Lieutenant Tyrconnell;[6] the Memoirs[7] of James the
Second by himself; _Histoire de la Revolution par Mazure_;[8] and
the pamphlets quoted in this publication, and the notes to it, he will
be in a fair way towards mastering this difficult question.
After all, that Parliament must be judged by its own conduct. If its
acts were unjust, bigoted, and rash, no excuse can save it from
condemnation. If, on the other hand, it acted with firmness and loyalty
towards its king--if it did much to secure the rights, the prosperity,
and the honour of the nation--if, in a country where property had been
turned upside down a few years before, it strove to do justice to the
many, with the least possible injury to the few--if, in a country torn
with religious quarrels, it endeavoured to secure liberty of conscience
without alienating the ultra zealous--and, finally, if in a country in
imminent danger from a powerful invader and numerous traitors, it was
more intent on raising resources and checking treason than would become
a parliament sitting in peace and safety, let us, while confessing its
fallibility, attend to its difficulties, and do honour to its vigour
and intelligence.
Before we mention the composition of the Parliament, it will be right
to run over some of the chief dates and facts which brought about the
state of things that led to its being summoned. Most Irishmen
(ourselves among the number) are only beginners at Irish history, and
cannot too often repeat the elements: still the beginning has been
made. It is no pedantry which leads one to the English invasion for the
tap-root of the transactions of the seventeenth century.
Four hundred years of rapacious war and wild resistance had made each
believe all things ill of the other; and when England changed her creed
in the sixteenth century it became certain that Ireland would adhere to
hers at all risks. Accordingly, the reigns of the latter, and
especially of the last of the Tudors, witnessed unceasing war, in which
an appetite for conquest was inflamed by bigotry on the English side,
while the native, who had been left unaided to defend his home, was now
stimulated by foreign counsels, as well as by his own feelings, to
guard his altar and his conscience too.
James the First found Ireland half conquered by the sword; he completed
the work by treachery, and the fee of five-sixths of Ulster rewarded
the "energy" of the British. The proceedings of Strafford added large
districts in the other provinces to the English possessions. Still, in
all these cases, as in the Munster settlement under Elizabeth, the bulk
of the population remained on the soil. To leave the land was to die.
They clung to it amid sufferings too shocking to dwell on;[9] they
clung to it under such a serfhood as made the rapacity of their
conquerors interested in retaining them on the soil. They clung to it
from necessity and from love. They multiplied on it with the rapidity
of the reckless. Yet they retained hope, the hope of restitution and
vengeance. The mad ferocity of Parsons and Borlace hastened the
outbreak of 1641. That insurrection gave back to the native his
property and his freedom, but compelled him to fight for it--first,
against the loyalists; next, against the traitors; and lastly, against
the republicans. After a struggle of ten years, distinguished by the
ability of the Council of Kilkenny, and the bravery of Owen Roe and his
followers, the Irish sunk under the abilities and hosts of Cromwell.
Those who felt his sway might well have envied the men who conquered
and died in the breach of Clonmel, or fell vanquished or betrayed at
Letterkenny and Drogheda. During the insurrection of 1641, the royal
government, at once timid and tyrannical, united with the sordid
capitalists of London to plunder the Irish of their lands and liberty,
if not to exterminate them.[10] In order to effect this, a system of
unparalleled lying was set afoot against the natives of this kingdom.
The violence which naturally attended the sudden resumption of property
by an ignorant, excited, and deeply wronged people, was magnified into
a national propensity to throat-cutting. Exaggerations the most
barefaced were received throughout England. Deaths, which the
English-minded Protestant, the Rev. Mr. Warner, has ascertained to have
been under 12,000--reckoning deaths from hardships along with those by
the sword--were rated in England at 150,000, and by John Milton at
616,000.[11] No wonder the English nation looked upon us as bloody
savages; and no wonder they looked approvingly at the massacres and
confiscations of the Lord Protector. But the Irish deemed they were
free from crime in resuming by force of arms the land which arms had
taken from them; they regarded the bloodshed of '41 as a deplorable
result of English oppression; they fought with the hearts of resolved
patriots till 1651.
The restoration of the Stuarts was hailed as the restoration of their
rights. They were woefully disappointed. A compromise was made between
the legitimists and the republicans; the former were to resume their
rank, the latter to retain their plunder, Ireland was disregarded. The
mockery of the Court of Claims restored less than one-third of the
Irish lands. While in 1641 the Roman Catholics possessed two-thirds of
Ireland, in 1680 they had but one-fifth[12]. Besides, the new
possessors were of an opposite creed, and fortified themselves by Penal
Laws. Under such circumstances the aim of most men would be much the
same, namely, to take the first opportunity of regaining their
property, their national independence, and religious freedom. With
reference to their legislation on the two latter points, doubts may be
entertained how much should be complained of; and even those who
condemn that on the first, should remember that "the re-adjustment of
all private rights, after so entire a destruction of their landmarks,
could only be effected by the coarse process of general rules[13]."
Let us now run over a few dates, till we come to the event which gave
the Irish this opportunity. On the 6th of February, 1685, Charles the
Second died in the secret profession of the Roman Catholic faith, and
his brother, James Stuart, Duke of York, succeeded him.
James the Second came to his throne with much of what usually wins
popular favour. He united in his person the blood of the Tudor,
Plantagenet, and Saxon kings of England, while his Scottish descent
came through every king of Scotland, and found its spring in the Irish
Dalriad chief, who, embarking from Ulster, overran Albany. In addition,
James had morals better than those of his rank and time, as much
intellect as most kings, and the reputation acquired from his naval
administration, graced as it was by sea-fights in which no ship was
earlier in action than James's, and by at least one great victory--that
over Opdam--fought near Yarmouth, on the 3rd June, 1665.
Yet the difference of his creed from that of his English subjects blew
these popular recollections to shivers. He tried to enforce, first,
toleration; and, secondly, perfect religious equality, and intended,
as many thought, the destruction of that equality, by substituting a
Roman Catholic for a Protestant supremacy; and the means he used for
this purpose were such as the English Parliament had pronounced
unconstitutional. He impeached the corporate charters by _quo
warranto_, brought to trial before judges whom he influenced, as all
his predecessors had done. He invaded the customs of the universities,
as having a legal right to do so. He suspended the penal laws, and
punished those who disobeyed his liberal but unpopular proclamations.
Some noble zealots, the Russells and Sidneys, crossed his path in vain;
but a few bold caballers, the Danbys, the Shaftesburys, and Churchills,
by urging him to despotic acts, and the people to resistance, brought
on a crisis; when, availing themselves of it, they called in a foreign
army and drove out James, and swore he had abdicated; expelled the
Prince of Wales, and falsely called him bastard; made terms with
William, that he should have the crown and privy purse, and they the
actual government; and ended by calling their selfish and hypocritical
work, "a popular and glorious revolution."
It is needless to follow up James's quarrel with the university of
Oxford, and his unsuccessful prosecution of the seven Bishops on the
29th of June, 1688, who, emboldened by the prospect of a revolution,
refused to read his proclamation of indulgence. From the day of their
acquittal, James was lost. Letters were circulated throughout
England[14] and Ireland, declaring the young Prince of Wales (who was
born 10th June) spurious, and containing many other falsehoods, so as
to shake men's souls with rumours, and arouse popular prejudices. The
army was tampered with; the nobles and clergy were in treaty with
Holland. James not only refused to retract his policy till it was too
late; but refused, too, the offer of Louis to send him French troops.
Similar means had been used by and against him in Ireland. Tyrconnell,
who had replaced Clarendon as Lord Lieutenant in 1686, got in the
charters of the corporations, reconstructed the army, and used every
means of giving the Roman Catholics that share in the government of
this country to which their numbers entitled them. And, on the other
hand, the Protestant nobles joined the English conspiracy, and adopted
the English plan of false plots and forged letters.
At length, on 4th November, 1688, Prince William landed at Torbay with
15,000 veterans. James attempted to bear up, but his nearest and
dearest, his relatives and his favourites, deserted him in the hour of
his need. It seems not excessive to say that there never was a
revolution in which so much ingratitude, selfishness, and meanness were
displayed. There is not one great genius or untainted character eminent
in it. Yet it succeeded. On the 18th of December, William entered
London; on the 23rd, James sailed for France; and in the February
following the English convention declared he had _abdicated_.
These dates are, as Plowden remarks, important; for though James's
flight, on the 23rd of December, was the legal pretence for
insurrection in the summer of 1689, yet negotiations had been going on
with Holland through 1687 and 1688,[15] and the Northern Irish formed
themselves into military corps, and attacked the soldiers of the crown
before Enniskillen, on the _first week_ in December; and on the 7th
December the gates of Derry were shut in the face of the king's
troops,[16] facts which should be remembered in judging the loyalty of
the two parties.
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[5] King's "State of the Protestants." Harris's "Life of King
William," folio, Dublin, 1749, book 8. Leland's "History of
Ireland," vol. 3, book 6, chaps. 5 and 6. Lesley's "Answer to
King's State of the Protestants," London, 1692. Curry's "Review of
the Civil Wars of Ireland." Plowden's "Historical Review of
Ireland; also History of Ireland," vol. i., c. 9. Jones's "Reply to
an anonymous writer from Belfast, signed Portia," Dublin, 1792.
[6] Thorpe's MSS.
[7] London, 2 vols. 4to, edited by Rev. J. Clarke.
[8] Paris, 1825, 3 vols. 8vo.
[9] Spenser's "View"; Fynes Moryson's "Itinerary"; Captain Lee's
"Memoir"; Harris's "Letters"; and Carte's "Ormonde."
[10] See the proofs of this collected in Carey's "Vindiciae
Hibernicae."
[11] Milton's "Eikonoclastes"; Warner's "History of the Rebellion";
Carey's "Vindiciae"; and Pamphlets, Libraries of Trinity College and
the Dublin Society.
[12] Sir W. Petty's "Political Anatomy of Ireland"; Lawrence's
"Interest of Ireland"; "Curry's Review"; "Carte's Life and Letters
of Ormonde," &c.
[13] Hallam's "Constitutional History," v. 3, p. 588, 3rd edition.
[14] Speke's "Memoirs."
[15] See the Declaration of Union, dated 21st March, 1688, in the
Appendix to Walker's "Account of the Siege of Derry."
[16] These acts were done in good faith by the people, instigated
by the devices of the nobles. A letter, now admitted to have been
forged, was dispersed by Lord Mount Alexander, announcing the
design of the Roman Catholics to murder the Protestants.
CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE PARLIAMENT.--THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
James landed at Kinsale, 12th March, 1689, about a month after the
election of William and Mary by the English convention. He entered
Dublin in state on the 24th March, accompanied by D'Avaux, as
Ambassador from France, and a splendid court. His first act was to
issue five proclamations--the first, requiring the return and aid of
his Irish absentee subjects; the second, urging upon the local
authorities the suppression of robberies and violence which had
increased in this unsettled state of affairs; the third, encouraging
the bringing provisions for his army; the fourth, creating a currency
of such metal as he had, conceiving it preferable to a paper currency
(a gold or silver currency was out of his power, for of the two
millions promised him by France, he only got L150,000); the fifth
proclamation summoned a parliament for the 7th May, 1689.
James also issued a proclamation promising liberty of conscience,
justice and protection[17] to all; and, after receiving many
congratulatory addresses, set out for Derry to press the blockade. On
the 29th April he returned to Dublin. On the 7th May Ireland possessed
a complete and independent government. Leaving the castle, over which
floated the national flag, James proceeded in full procession to the
King's Inns, where the Parliament sat, and the Commons having assembled
at the bar of the Peers, James entered, "with Robe and Crown," and
addressed the Commons in a speech full of manliness and dignity. At the
close of the speech, the Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Gosworth, directed
the Commons to retire and make choice of a Speaker. In half an hour the
Commons returned and presented Sir Richard Nagle as their Speaker, a
man of great endowments and high character. The Speaker was accepted,
and the Houses adjourned.
The peers who sat in this parliament amounted to fifty-four. Among
these fifty-four were six dignitaries of the Protestant Church, one
duke, ten earls, sixteen viscounts, and twenty-one barons. It contained
the oldest families of the country--O'Brien and DeCourcy, MacCarty and
Bermingham, De Burgo and Maguire, Butler and Fitzpatrick. The bishops
of Meath, Cork, Ossory, Limerick, and Waterford, and the Protestant
names of Aungier, Le Poer, and Forbes sat with the representatives of
the great Roman Catholic houses of Plunket, Barnewell, Dillon, and
Nugent. Nor were some fresher honours wanting; Talbot and Mountcashel
were the darlings of the people, the trust of the soldiery, the themes
of bards.
King's impeachment of this parliament is amusing enough. His first
charge is, that if the House were full, the majority would have been
Protestant. Now, if the majority preferred acting as insurgents under
the Prince of Orange, to attending to their duties in the Irish house
of peers, it was their own fault. Certain it is, the most violent might
safely have attended, for the earls of Granard and Longford and the
bishop of Meath not only attended, but carried on a bold and systematic
opposition. And so far was the House from resenting this, that they
committed the sheriff of Dublin to prison for billeting an officer at
the bishop of Meath's. Yet the bishop had not merely resisted their
favourite repeal of the Settlement, but, in doing so, had stigmatized
their fathers and some of themselves as murderous rebels.
King's next charge is, that the attainders of many peers were reversed
to admit them. Now this is unsupported evidence against fact, and
simply a falsehood. Then he complains of the new creations. They were
just _five_ in number; and of these five, two were great legal
dignitaries--the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; the
third was Colonel MacCarty, of the princely family of Desmond, and a
distinguished soldier with a great following; the others, Brown, Lord
Kenmare; and Bourke, Lord Bofin (son of Lord Clanricarde), men of high
position in their counties.
Fitton, Lord Gosworth, occupied the woolsack. That he was a man of
capacity, if not of character, may be fairly presumed from his party
having put him in so important an office in such trying times.[18] He
certainly had neither faction nor following to bring with him. Nor was
he treated by his party below what his rank entitled him to. The
appointments in his court were not interfered with: his decrees were
not impeached, and in the council he sat above even Herbert, the Lord
Chancellor of England. Yet, King describes this man as "detected of
forgery," one who was brought from gaol to the woolsack--one who had
not appeared in any court--a stranger to the kingdom, the laws, and the
practice and rules of court;--one who made constant needless references
to the Masters to disguise his ignorance, and who was brought into
power, first, because he was "a convert papist, that is, a renegade to
his country and his religion;" and, secondly, because he would enable
the Irish to recover their estates by countenancing "forgeries and
perjuries," which last, continues the veracious archbishop, he nearly
effected, without putting them to the trouble of repealing the Acts of
Settlement. King staggers from the assertion that Fitton denied justice
to Protestants, into saying it was got from him with difficulty.
Thomas Nugent, Baron Riverstown, second son of the Earl of Westmeath,
was chosen chairman of committees. King, who is the only authority at
present accessible to us, states that Nugent had been "out" in 1641,
but considering that he did not die till 1715, he must have been a mere
boy in '41, if born at all; and, at any rate, as his family, including
his grandfather, Lord Delvin (first Earl of Westmeath), and his father,
carried arms against the Irish up to 1648, and suffered severely, it is
most improbable that he was, as a child, in the opposite ranks.
The Irish had never ceased to agitate against the Acts of Settlement
and Explanation. Thus Sir Nicholas Plunket had done legal battle
against the first, till an express resolution excluded him by name from
appearing at the bar of the council. Then Colonel Talbot (Tyrconnell)
led the opposition effort for their repeal or mild administration. In
1686, Sir Richard Nagle went to England, as agent of the Irish, to seek
their repeal. But the greatest effort was made in 1688. Nugent and Rice
were sent expressly to London to press the repeal. Rice is said to have
shown great tact and eloquence, but Nugent to have been rash and
confused. Certain it is, they were unsuccessful with the council, and
were brutally insulted by the London mob, set on by the very decent
chiefs of the Williamite party.
Of the eighteen prelates, ten were Englishmen, one Welsh, and only
seven Irish. Several had been chaplains to the different lords
lieutenant. Eleven out of the eighteen were in England during the
session. Of these, some were habitual absentees, such as Thomas
Hackett, bishop of Down, deprived in 1691 by Williamite commissioners
for an absence of twenty years. Others had got leave of absence during
'87 and '88. Some, like Archbishop John Vesey of Tuam, and Bishop
Richard Tennison of Killala, fled in good earnest, and accepted
lecturerships and cures in London.
There was one man among them who deserves more notice, Anthony Dopping,
lord bishop of Meath. He was born in Dublin, 28th March, 1643, and died
24th April, 1697. He was educated in St. Patrick's schools, and won his
fellowship in T.C.D. in 1662, being only 19 years old. He led the
opposition in the parliament of '89 with great vigour and pertinacity.
He resisted all the principal measures, and procured great changes in
some of them, as appears by "The Journal." He had a fearless character
and ready tongue. He continued a leader of the Ultras after the battle
of the Boyne, and quarrelled with the government. King William, finding
how slowly the Irish war proceeded, had prepared and sent to Ireland a
proclamation conceding the demands of the Roman Catholics, granting
them perfect religious liberty, right of admission to all offices, and
an establishment for their clergy.[19] While this was with the printers
in Dublin, news came of the danger of Limerick. The proclamation was
suppressed by the Lords Justices, who hastened to the camp, "to hold
the Irish to as hard terms as possible. This they did effectually."
Still these "hard terms" were too lenient for the Ultras, who roared
against the treaty of Limerick, and demanded its abrogation. On the
Sunday after the Lords Justices had returned, full of joy at having
tricked the Irish into so much harder terms than William had directed
them to offer, they attended Christ Church, and the bishop of Meath
preached a sermon, whose whole object was to urge the breaking of the
treaty of Limerick, contending (says Harris, in his Irish Writers in
Ware, p. 215) that "peace ought not to be kept with a people so
perfidious." The Justices, and the Williamite or moderate party, were
enraged at this. The bishop of Kildare was directed to preach in Christ
Church on the following Sunday in favour of the treaty; and he obtained
the place in the privy council from which the bishop of Meath was
expelled; but ultimately the party of the latter triumphed, and enacted
the penal laws.
The list of the Lords Temporal has been made out with great care, from
all the authorities accessible.
Ireland had then but two dukes, Tyrconnell and Ormond. Ormond possessed
the enormous spoils acquired by his grandfather from the Irish, and was
therefore largely interested in the success of the English party. He,
of course, did not attend. His huge territory and its regal privileges
were taken from him by a special act.
Considering the position he occupied, the materials on the life of
Tyrconnell are most unsatisfactory. Richard Talbot was a cadet of the
Irish branch of the Shrewsbury family, and numbered in his ancestors
the first names in English history. His father was Sir William Talbot,
a distinguished Irish lawyer, and his brother, Peter Talbot, was R.C.
Archbishop of Dublin, and was murdered there by tedious imprisonment on
a false charge in 1680. He was a lad of sixteen when Cromwell sacked
Drogheda in September 1649, and he doubtless brought from its bloody
ashes no feeling in favour of the Saxon. He was all his life engaged in
the service of the Irish and of James. He was attached to the Duke of
York's suite from the Restoration, and was taken prisoner by the Dutch,
on board the Catharine, in the naval action at Solebay, 29th May,
1672.[20] After the Acts of Settlement and Explanation were passed, he
acted as agent for the Irish Roman Catholics, urging their claims with
all the influence his rank, abilities, and fortune[21] could command.
His zeal got him into frequent dangers; he was sent to the Tower in
1661 and 1671 for having challenged the Duke of Ormond, and the English
Commons presented an address in 1671, praying his dismissal from all
public employments. He was selected by James, both from personal trust
and popularity, to communicate with the Irish; and though Clarendon was
first sent as Lord Lieutenant in '85, Tyrconnell had the independent
management of the army,[22] and replaced Clarendon in 1686.
Sarsfield, who was at the head of "the French party," and most of the
great Irish officers, thought him undecided, hardly bold enough, and
with a selfish leaning towards England. Of his selfishness we have now
a better proof than they had, a proof that _might_ have abated his
master's eulogy, given further on. We say _might_, for _possibly_
Tyrconnell was in communication with James as to the French offers.
"It is now ascertained that, doubtful of the king's success in the
struggle for restoring popery in England, he had made secret
overtures to some of the French agents, for casting off all
connection with that kingdom in case of James's death, and, with
the aid of Louis, placing the crown of Ireland on his own head. M.
Mazure has brought this remarkable fact to light. Bonrepos, a
French emissary in England, was authorised by his court to proceed
in a negociation with Tyrconnell for the separation of the two
islands, in case that a Protestant should succeed to the crown of
England. He had accordingly a private interview with a confidential
agent of the Lord Lieutenant at Chester in the month of October,
1687. Tyrconnell undertook that in less than a year everything
should be prepared."[23]
Tyrconnell was made Baron Talbotstown, Viscount Baltinglass, and Earl
of Tyrconnell in 1686, and Duke and Marquis, 30th March, 1689.
From his coming to Ireland, he worked hard for his master and his
countrymen. He gradually substituted Jacobite soldiers for the
Oliverians, who till then filled the ranks. He increased the army
largely, and lent the king 3,000 men in '88. Mischief was done to
James's cause by this employment of Irish troops in England. He was
active in calling in the corporation charters, and was exposed to much
calumny on account of it. The means, doubtless, were indefensible (for
the change should have been effected by act of Parliament, as it has at
length been in our times), but the end was to put the corporations into
the hands of the Irish people. And even in those new corporations,
one-third of the burgesses were of English descent and Protestant
faith; but this moderation is attempted to be shaved away by the
Williamites, who insist that most of these Protestants were Quakers,
whom they describe as a savage rabble, originally founded by the
Jesuits[24]--with what injustice we need hardly say. James describes
him "as a man of good abilities and clear courage, and one who for many
years had a true attachment to his majesty's person and interest."[25]
Lord Clanrickarde represented the Mac William _Uachdar_, one of the two
great branches of the De Burgos, who usurped the chieftaincy on the
death of the Earl of Ulster in the year 1333. His father was the great
Lord Clanrickarde, who held Connaught in peace and loyalty, from 1641
to 1650; when the troops for which he had negotiated with the Duke of
Lorraine not arriving, he too yielded to the storm.
Mac Donnel Lord Antrim, also the representative of a great house (the
Lord of the Isles), was equally dependant on his predecessor for
notoriety. His elder brother, the Marquis and Earl of Antrim, played a
notorious and powerful part on the Irish side, in the war, from 1642 up
to 1650. This Earl Alexander also commanded an Irish regiment during
the same war. He was within the treaty of Limerick, and saved his rank
and fortune.
Lords Longford and Granard were Williamites in fact. This does not
follow from their having acted so vigorously in the opposition in 1689,
but from their having joined William openly the year after. Lord
Granard had been offered the command of the Williamites of Ulster in
1688, and on his refusal, Lord Mount Alexander was appointed.
Among the earls, one naturally looks for the two famous names of Taaffe
and Lucan. But Taaffe was then on an embassy to the emperor, and
Patrick Sarsfield was not made Earl of Lucan till after. Indeed his
patent is not entered in the rolls, from which 'tis probable he was not
titled till after the battle of the Boyne.
Viscount Iveagh held Drogheda at the battle of the Boyne, and was
induced to surrender it by William's ruffianly and unmilitary threat of
"no quarter."
Lord Clare was father to the famous Lord Clare, whose regiment was the
glory of the Irish Brigade, and who was killed at Ramillies in 1706. He
was descended from Connor O'Brian, third earl of Thomond.
Lord Mountcashel, by his rapidity and skill, completely broke the
Munster insurgents, and made that province, till then considered the
stronghold of the English, James's best help. To him was intrusted the
Bill repealing the Settlement in the Commons, where he sat as member
for the county of Cork till that Bill passed the Commons, when he was
called to the Upper House as Lord Mountcashel.
Lord Kinsale represented the famous John De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, and
had the blood of Charlemagne in his veins. He served as
Lieutenant-Colonel to Lord Lucan. His attainder under William was
reversed, and he appeared at court, where he enforced the privilege
peculiar to his family of remaining covered in the king's presence.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[17] See as to this, Melfort's letter to Pottinger, the sovereign
of Belfast; "History of Belfast," pp. 72-3; Lesley _proves_, on
Williamite authority, that the Protestants were worse treated by
William's army than by James's. See Dr. Gorges in Lesley's
Appendix.
[18] He was appointed in 1686 (see Appendix B). T. W. R.
[19] In July, 1691, William had offered these terms: 1st. The free
public exercise of the Roman Catholic Religion. 2nd. Half the
churches in the kingdom. 3rd. Half the employments, civil and
military, if they pleased. 4th. Half their properties, as held
prior to Cromwell's conquest. The terms were at once refused. The
suppressed proclamation doubtless offered at least as much.
(Harris's "William," and Plowden, b. 2.)
[20] Rawdon Papers, p. 253.
[21] Anthony Hamilton, in his "Memoirs of Grammont," exaggerates
this to L40,000 a year, and attributes Miss Jennings' affection to
its attractions. But besides that, by his statement, Tyrconnell had
been a rival of Grammont with Miss Hamilton, there is enough in
Grammont to account for it otherwise. Hamilton, an Irishman, and a
Jacobite, seems to have sympathised with Tyrconnell. He describes
him as "one of the largest and most powerful looking men in
England," "with a brilliant and handsome appearance, and something
of nobility, not to say haughtiness in his manners." He mentions
circumstances, showing him bold, free, amorous, and, strange for a
courtier, punctual in payment of debts. Yet this man, so full of
refinement, and so trained, is described by King as addressing the
Irish Privy Council thus:--"I have put the sword into your hands,
and God damn you all if ever you part with it."
[22] Clarendon's "State Letters," vol. i. and the Diary.
[23] Hallam's "Constitutional History," v. iii., p. 530.
[24] State Tracts, Will. III.'s reign, H. R.'s App. to Cox.
[25] "Memoirs of James II.," by the Rev. ---- Clarke, Chaplain to
George IV. These memoirs seem to have been copies of memoirs
written under James II.'s inspection, and deposited in the Scotch
College in Paris. The originals perished at the French Revolution,
and their copies came to Rome, from whence they were procured for
the English government in 1805. See Mr. Clarke's preface, and
Guizot's preface to his translation of them in the "Memoires de la
Revolution."
CHAPTER III.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
The number of members in the Commons, as the complement was made up
under the monstrous charters of James I., Charles I., and Charles II.,
far outdoing in their unconstitutional nature any of the stretchings of
prerogative in the reign of James II., amounted to 300. The number
actually returned was 224. Of the deficiencies, no less than 28 were
caused by the places being the seats of the war.
The character of this assembly must be chiefly judged by its acts, and
we shall presently resume the consideration of them; but there are some
things in the composition of the Commons whereby their character has
been judged.
They have been denounced by King: but before we examine his statements,
let us inquire who he was, lest we underrate or overrate his testimony;
lest we unjustly require proof, in addition to the witness of a
thoroughly pure and wise man; or, what is more dangerous, lest we
remain content with the unconfirmed statements of a bigot or knave.
William King was the son of James King, a miller, who, in order to
avoid taking the Solemn League and Covenant, removed from the North of
Scotland, and settled in Antrim, where William was born, 1st of May,
1650. (See Harris's "Ware," Bishops of Derry.) He was educated at
Dungannon, was a sizar, "_native_," and schoolmaster in T.C.D., and was
ordained in 1673. Parker, archbishop of Tuam, gave him a heap of
livings, and on being translated to Dublin, procured the Chancellorship
of St. Patrick's for King in 1679. This he held during the Revolution.
He was imprisoned in 1689 on suspicion, but after some months was
released, through the influence of Herbert and Tyrconnell, and
notwithstanding C. J. Nugent's opposition. Immediately on his release
he wrote his "State of the Protestants of Ireland," printed in London,
_cum privilegio_, at the chief Williamite printer's. It was written and
published while the war in Ireland was at its height, and when it was
sought at any price to check the Jacobite feeling then beginning to
revive in England, by running down the conduct of the Irish, James's
most formidable supporters. Moreover, King had been imprisoned (justly
or unjustly) by James's council, and he obtained the bishopric of Derry
from William, on the 25th of January, 1690 (old style), namely, within
thirty-eight weeks before the publication of his book, which was
printed, _cum privilegio_, 15th of October, 1691. Whether the bishopric
was the wages of the book, or the book revenge for the imprisonment, we
shall not say; but surely King must have had marvellous virtue to write
impartially, in excited and reckless times, for so demoralized a party
as the English Whigs, when he wrote of transactions yet incomplete, of
which there was a perilous stake not only for him but for his friends,
and when, of the parties at issue, one gave him a gaol and the other a
mitre.
There is scarcely a section in his book that does not abound with the
most superlative charges, put in the coarsest language. All the
calumnies as to 1641, which are now confessed to be false, are gospel
truths in his book. He never gives an exact authority for any of his
graver charges, and his appendix is a valuable reply to his text.
When, in addition to these external probabilites and intrinsic
evidences of falsehood, we add that, immediately on its publication,
Lesley wrote an answer to it, denying its main statements as mere lies,
and that his book was never replied to, we will not be in a hurry to
adopt any statement of King's.
But in order to see the force of this last objection to King's
credibility, something must be known of Lesley.
Charles Lesley, son of the bishop of Clogher, is chiefly known for his
very able controversial writings against Deists, Catholics, and
Dissenters. He was a law-student till 1680, when he took orders; and in
1687 became chancellor of Connor. When, in 1688, James appointed a
Roman Catholic sheriff for Monaghan, Mr. Lesley, being then sick with
gout, had himself carried to the courthouse, and induced the
magistrates to commit the sheriff. In fact, it appears from Harris
("Life of William," p. 216, and "Writers of Ireland," pp. 282-6), that
Lesley was notorious for his conversions of Roman Catholics, and his
stern hostility to Tyrconnell's government. Lesley refused to take the
oath of supremacy after the Revolution, and thereby lost all chance of
promotion in the Church. He was looked on as the head of the nonjurors,
and died in March, 1721-2, at Glaslough, universally respected.
Such being Mr. Lesley's character, so able, so upright, so zealously
Protestant, he, in 1692, wrote an answer to King's "State," in which he
accuses King of the basest personal hypocrisy and charges him with
having in his book written gross, abominable, and notorious falsehoods,
and this he _proves_ in several instances, and in many more renders it
highly probable. King died 8th May, 1729, leaving Lesley's book
altogether unreplied to.
Here then was that man--bishop of Derry for eleven years and archbishop
of Dublin for twenty-seven years--remaining silent under a charge of
deliberate and interested falsehood, and that charge made by no
unworthy man, but by one of his own country, neighbourhood, and
creed--by one of acknowledged virtue, high position, and vast
abilities.
Nor is this all; Lesley's book was not only unanswered; it was watched
and attempted to be stopped, and when published, was instantly ordered
to be suppressed, as were all other publications in favour of the Irish
or of King James.
The reader is now in a position to judge of the credibility of any
assertion of King's, when unsupported by other authority.
King's gravest charges are in the following passage:--
"These members of the House of Commons are elected either by
freeholders of counties, or the freemen of the corporations; and I
have already showed how king James wrested these out of the hands
of Protestants, and put them into Popish hands in the new
constitution of corporations, by which the freemen and freeholders
of cities or boroughs, to whom the election of burgesses originally
belongs, are excluded, and the election put into the hands of a
small number of men named by the king, and removable at his
pleasure. The Protestant freeholders, if they had been in the
kingdom, were much more than the papist freeholders, but now being
gone, though many counties could not make a jury, as appeared at
the intended trial of Mr. Price and other Protestants at Wicklow,
who could not be tried for want of freeholders--yet, notwithstanding
the paucity of these, they made a shift to return knights of the
shire. The common way of election was thus:--The Earl of
Tyrconnell, together with the writ for election, commonly sent a
letter, recommending the persons he designed should be chosen; the
sheriff or mayor being his creature, on receipt of this, called so
many of the freeholders of a county or burgesses of a corporation
together, as he thought fit, and without making any noise, made the
return. It was easier to do this in boroughs--because, by their new
charters, the electors were not above twelve or thirteen, and in
the greatest cities but twenty-four; and commonly, not half of
these in the place. The method of the Sheriff's proceeding was the
same; the number of Popish freeholders being very small, sometimes
not a dozen in a county, it was easier to give notice to them to
appear, so that the Protestants either did not know of the election
or durst not appear at it."
First let us see about the boroughs. King, in his section on the
corporations, states in terms that "they" (the Protestants) "thought it
reasonable to keep these (corporate towns) in their own hands, as being
the foundation of the legislative power, and therefore secluded
papists," etc. The purport, therefore, of King's objection to the new
constitution under King James's charters was the admission of Roman
Catholics. Religious equality was sinful in his eyes.
The means used by James to change the corporations, namely bringing
_quo warrantos_ in the Exchequer against them, and employing all the
niceties of a confused law to quash them, we have before condemned. In
doing so, he had the precedents of the reigns called most constitutional
by English historians, and those not old, but during his brother's
reign; nor can anyone who has looked into Brady's treatise on Boroughs
doubt that there was plenty of "law" in favour of James's conduct.[26]
But still public policy and public opinion in England were against
these _quo warrantos_, and in Ireland they were only approved of by
those who were to be benefited by them.
But the means being thus improper, the use made by James of this power
can hardly be complained of. The Roman Catholics were then about
900,000, the Protestants, over 300,000. James, it is confessed, allowed
one-third of the corporations to be Protestant, though they were
little, if at all, more than one-fourth of the population. This will
appear no great injustice in our times, although some of these
Protestants may, as it has been alleged, have been "Quakers."
It must also be remembered that those proceedings were begun not by
James but by Charles; that the corporations were, with some show of
law, conceived to have been forfeited during the Irish war, or the
Cromwellian rule; and that being offered renewals on terms, they
refused; whereupon the _quo warrantos_ were brought and decided before
the regular tribunals during the earlier and middle part of James's
reign. On the 24th September, 1687, James issued his Royal Letter (to
be found in Harris's Appendix, pp. 4 to 6), commanding the renewal of
the charters. By these renewals, the first members of the corporations
were to be named by the lord lieutenant, but they were afterwards to
be elected by the corporations themselves. There certainly are
_non-obstante_ and non-resistance clauses ordered to be inserted, in
the prerogative spirit of that day, which were justly complained of.
With reference to the number of burgesses, King's statement that the
number of electors was usually twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest
cities but twenty-four, is untrue. Most of the Irish boroughs were
certainly reduced to these numbers under the liberal Hanoverian
government, but not so under James. The members' names are given in
full in Harris's Appendix, and from those it appears that no
corporation had so few as twelve electors. Only five, viz.--Dungannon,
Ennis, St. Johnstown (in Longford), Belturbet, and Athboy, were as low
as thirteen; twenty-three, viz.--Tuam, Kildare, Cavan, Galway, Callan,
Newborough, Carlingford, Gowran, Carysfort, Boyle, Roscommon, Athy,
Strabane, Middletown, Newry, Philipstown, Banagher, Castlebar, Fethard,
Blessington, Charleville, Thomastown, and Baltimore, varied from
fourteen to twenty-four; most of the rest varied from thirty to forty.
Dublin had seventy-three; Cork, sixty-one; Clonmel, forty-six; Cashel,
forty-two; Drogheda, fifty-seven; Kilkenny, sixty-one; Limerick,
sixty-five; Waterford, forty-nine; Youghal, forty-six; Wexford,
fifty-three, and Derry, sixty-four. This is a striking proof of the
little reliance to be placed on King's positive statements.
Harris, a hostile authority, gives the names and generally the
additions of the members of each corporation, and the majority are
merchants, respectable traders, engineers, or gentlemen. Moreover, in
such towns as our local knowledge extends to, the names are those of
the best families, not being zealous Williamites. As to the counties,
King relies upon a pamphlet published in London in 1689, setting out
great grievances in the title page, and disproving them in the body of
the tract.
If many Protestant freeholders had fled to England, who was to
blame?--Most assuredly, my Lord Mount Alexander and the rest of the
right noble and honourable suborners, devisers, and propagators of
forged letters and infamous reports, whereby they frightened the
Protestants, in order to take advantage of their terror for their own
selfish ends. The exposure of these devices by the publication of
"Speke's Memoirs," by the confessed forgery of the Dromore letter,
etc., have thrown the chief blame of the Protestant desertion off the
shoulders of those Protestants, off the shoulders, too, of the Irish
government, and have brought it crushingly upon the aristocratic cabal,
who alone profited by the revolution, as they alone caused it.
In the absence of other testimony, we must take, with similar allowances,
the story of Tyrconnell "_commonly_" sending an unconstitutional letter
to influence the election. But how very good these Jacobite sheriffs
and mayors were to let King into the secret, in 1691, when their
destiny was uncertain! That such gossip was current is likely, but for
a historian to assert on such authority is scandalous.
King asserts that the unrepresented boroughs were "_about twenty-nine_."
Now, there were but _eighteen_ boroughs unrestored; but King helps out
the falsehood by inserting places--Thurles, Tipperary, Arklow, and
Birr--which _never_ had members before or since, by _creating_ a
_second_ town of Kells, by transferring St. Johnstown in Longford which
returned members, to St. Johnstown in Donegal, which was a seat of war,
and by other tricks equally discreditable to his honesty and
intelligence.
The towns unrestored _could_ not have sent members to James's
parliament, and it was apparently doubted whether they ought to have
done so to William's in '92.
Against the Commons actually elected the charge is that only six
Protestants were elected. In the very section containing the charge it
is much qualified by other statements. "Thus," he says, "one Gerard
Dillon, Sergeant-at-Law, a most furious Papist, was Recorder of Dublin,
and he stood to be chosen one of the burgesses for the city, but could
not prevail, because he had purchased a considerable estate under the
Act of Settlement, and they feared lest this might engage him to defend
it;" and therefore they chose Sir Michael Creagh and Terence Dermot,
their Senior Aldermen, showing pretty clearly that the good citizens of
Dublin set little value on the "furious Popery" of Prime Sergeant
Dillon, in comparison with their property plundered by the Act of
Settlement.
The election for Trinity College is worthy of notice. We have it set
out in flaming paragraphs how horribly the College was used, worse than
any other borough, "Popish Fellows" being intruded. "In the house they
placed a Popish garrison, turned the chapel into a magazine, and many
of the chambers into prisons for Protestants." (King, p. 220, Ed.
1744.) Yet, _miraculous_ to say, in the heart of this "Popish
garrison," the "turned-out Vice-Provost, Fellows, and Scholars" met,
and elected two most bold, notable, and Protestant Williamites.
If this election could take place in Dublin, under the very nose of the
Government, and in a corporation in which the king had unquestioned
control, one will hesitate about the compulsion or exclusion in other
places.
Besides Sir John Meade and Mr. Joseph Coghlan, the members for the
College, there "were four more Protestants returned, of whose behaviour
I can give no account," says King. Pity he does not give the names.
If we were to allow a similar error in King's account of the creed of
the elected, that we have proved in his lists of the borough electors,
it would raise the number of Protestants in the house to about
fourteen.
Allowing then for the Protestants in arms against the Government--out
of the country, or within the seat of war--the disproportion between
their representatives and the Roman Catholics will lessen greatly.
One thing more is worth noticing in the Commons, and that is a sort of
sept representation. Thus we see O'Neills in Antrim, Tyrone, and
Armagh; Magennises in Down; O'Reillys in Cavan; Martins, Blakes,
Kirwans, Dalys, Bourkes for Connaught; MacCarthys, O'Briens, O'Donovans
for Cork and Clare; Farrells for Longford; Graces, Purcells, Butlers,
Welshs, Fitzgeralds for Tipperary, Kilkenny, Kildare, etc.; O'Tooles,
Byrnes, and Eustaces for Wicklow; MacMahons for Monaghan; Nugents,
Bellews, Talbots, etc., for North Leinster.
Sir Richard Nagle, the Speaker, was the descendant of an old Norman
family (said to be the same as the Nangles) settled in Cork. His
paternal castle, Carrignancurra, is on the edge of a steep rock, over
the meadows of the Blackwater, half-a-dozen miles below Mallow. It is
now the property of the Foot family, and here may still be seen the
mouldering ruin where that subtle lawyer first learned to plan.
Peacefully now look the long oak-clad cliffs on the happy river.
Nagle had obtained a splendid reputation at the Irish Bar. "He had been
educated among the Jesuits, and designed for a clergyman," says King,
"but afterwards betook himself to the study of the law, in which he
arrived to a good perfection." Harris, likewise, calls him "an artful
lawyer of great parts." Tyrconnell valued him rightly, and brought him
to England with him in the autumn of 1686. His reputation seems to have
been great, for it seems the lords interested in the Settlement Act,
"on being informed of Nagle's arrival, were so transported with rage
that they would have had him immediately sent out of London."
He was knighted, and made attorney-general in 1687; and on James's
arrival, March, 1688-9, he was made secretary of state. He is said, we
know not how truly, to have drafted the Commons' bill for the repeal of
the Settlement.
Let us mention some of the members.--Nagle's colleague in Cork was
Colonel MacCarty, afterwards Lord Mountcashel. Miles de Courcy,
afterwards Lord Kinsale, MacCarty Reagh, who finally settled in France.
His descendant, Count MacCarty Reagh, was notable for having one of the
finest libraries in Europe, which was sold after the Revolution.
The Rt. Hon. Simon Lutteral raised a dragoon regiment for James, and
afterwards commanded the Queen's regiment of infantry in the Brigade.
He was father to Colonel Henry Lutteral, accused of having betrayed the
passage of the Shannon at Limerick; and though Harris throws doubt on
this particular act of treason, his correspondence and rewards from
William seem sufficient proof and confirmation of his guilt.
Lally of Tullendaly, member for Tuam, was the representative of the
O'Lallys, an old Irish sept. His brother, John Gerard Lally, settled in
France, and married a sister to Dillon, "_colonel proprietaire_" in the
Brigade, and was Colonel commanding in this illustrious regiment. Sir
Gerard was father to the famous Count Thomas Lally Tollendal, who,
after having served from the age of twelve to sixty-four in every
quarter of the globe, from Barcelona to Dettingen, and from Fontenoy to
Pondicherry, was beheaded on the 9th of May, 1766. The Marquis De Lally
Tollendal, a distinguished lawyer and statesman of the Bourbonist
party, and writer of the life of Strafford, and many other works, was a
grand-nephew to James Lally, the member for Tuam in '89.
Colonel Roger Mac Elligot, who commanded Lord Clancarty's regiment (the
12th infantry) in the Brigade, was member for Ardfert.
Limerick.--Sir John Fitzgerald was "_col. propr._" of the regiment of
Limerick (8th infantry) in the Brigade.
Oliver O'Gara, member for Tulske, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the guards
under Colonel Dorrington.
Hugh Mac Mahon, Gordon O'Nials Lieutenant-Colonel, was member for
Monaghan.
The Right Hon. Nicholas Purcell, member for Tipperary, was a Privy
Councillor early in James's reign. His family were Barons of Loughmoe,
and of great consideration in those parts.
The first bill introduced into the Lords was on the 8th of May--that
for the recognition of the king--and the same day committees of
grievance were appointed.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[26] Hallam ("Constitutional History," chaps. 13 and 14) contains
enough to show the uncertainty of the law. Throughout these, as in
all parts of his work, he is a jealous Williamite and a bigoted
Whig. His treatment of Curry has been justly censured by Mr. Wyse,
in his valuable "History of the Catholic Association," vol. i.,
pp. 36-7.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SESSION.
It is needless for us to track the parliament through the debates of
the session, which lasted till the 20th July. The few acts (thirty-five),
passed in two months, received full and earnest discussion; committees
and counsel were heard on many of them (the Acts for repealing the
Settlement in particular), and this parliament refused even to adjourn
during any holiday.
We trust our readers will deal like searchers for truth, not like
polemics, with these documents, and with the history of these times.
But, above all, let them not approach the subject unless it be in a
spirit enlightened by philosophy and warmed by charity. Thus studied,
this time, which has been the armoury of faction, may become the temple
of reconciliation. The descendant of the Williamite ought to sympathise
with the urgent patriotism and loyalty of the parliament, rather than
dwell on its errors, or on the sufferings which civil war inflicted on
his forefathers. The heir of the Jacobite may well be proud of such
countrymen as the Inniskilliners and the 'Prentice Boys of Derry. Both
must deplore that the falsehoods, corruption, and forgeries of English
aristocrats, the imprudence of an English king, and the fickleness of
the English people placed the noble cavalry which slew Schomberg, and
all but beat William's immense masses at the Boyne, in opposition to
the stout men of Butler's-bridge and Cavan. What had not the defenders
of Derry and Limerick, the heroes of Athlone, Inniskillen, and Aughrim
done, had they cordially joined against the alien? Let the Roman
Catholics, crushed by the Penal Code, let the Protestants, impoverished
and insulted by England, till, musket in hand and with banners
displayed, they forced their rights from her in '82--let both look
narrowly at the causes of those intestine feuds, which have prostrated
both in turn before the stranger, and see whether much may not be said
for both sides, and whether half of what each calls crime in the other
is not his own distrust or his neighbour's ignorance. Knowledge,
Charity, and Patriotism are the only powers which can loose this
Prometheus-land. Let us seek them daily in our own hearts and
conversation.
The Acts and other official documents of James's Parliament were
ordered by William's Parliament to be burned, and became extremely
scarce. In 1740 they were printed in Dublin by Ebenezer Rider, and from
that collection we propose to reprint the most important of them, as
the best and most solid answer to misrepresentation.
The Parliament which passed those Acts was the first and the last which
ever sat in Ireland since the English invasion, possessed of national
authority, and complete in all its parts. The king, by law and in
fact--the king who, by his Scottish descent, his creed, and his
misfortunes, was dear (mistakenly or not) to the majority of the then
people of Ireland--presided in person over that Parliament. The peerage
consisted of the best blood, Milesian and Norman, of great wealth and
of various creeds. The Commons represented the Irish septs, the Danish
towns, and the Anglo-Irish counties and boroughs. No Parliament of
equal rank, from King to Commons, sat here since; none sat here before
or since so national in composition and conduct.
Standing between two dynasties--endangering the one, and almost
rescuing the other--acting for a nation entirely unchained then for the
first time in 500 years--this Parliament and its Acts _ought_ to
possess the very greatest interest for the historian and the patriot.
This was the speech with which his Majesty opened the Session:--
_My Lords and Gentlemen_,
The Exemplary Loyalty which this Nation hath expressed to me, at a
time when _others_ of my _Subjects undutifully misbehaved
themselves to me, or so basely deserted me_: And your seconding my
Deputy, as you did, in His Firm and Resolute asserting my Right, in
preserving this Kingdom for me, and putting it in a Posture of
Defence; made me resolve to come to you, and to venture my life
with you, in the defence of your Liberties and my Own Right. And to
my great Satisfaction I have not only found you ready to serve me,
but that your Courage has equalled your Zeal.
I have always been for Liberty of Conscience, and against invading
any Man's Property; having still in my Mind that Saying in Holy
Writ, _Do as you would be done to, for that is the Law and the
Prophets_.
_It was this Liberty of Conscience I gave, which my Enemies both
Abroad and at Home dreaded; especially when they saw that I was
resolved to have it Established by Law in all my Dominions, and
made them set themselves up against me_, though for different
Reasons. Seeing that if I had once settled it, _My people_ (_in
the Opinion of the One_) would have been too happy; and I (_in the
Opinion of the Other_) too great.
_This Argument was made use of_, to persuade their own People
to joyn with them, and to many of my Subjects to use me as they
have done. But nothing shall ever persuade me to change my Mind as
to that; and wheresoever I am the Master, I design (God willing) to
Establish it by Law; and have no other Test or Distinction but that
of Loyalty.
I expect your Concurrence in so Christian a Work, and in making
Laws against Prophaneness and all Sorts of Debauchery.
I shall also most readily consent to the making such Good and
Wholesome Laws as may be for the general Good of the Nation, the
Improvement of Trade, and the relieving of such as have been
injured by the late _Acts of Settlement_, as far forth as may
be consistent with Reason, Justice, and the Publick Good of my
People.
And as I shall do my Part to make you Happy and Rich, I make no
Doubt of your Assistance; by enabling me to oppose the unjust
Designs of my Enemies, and to make this Nation flourish.
And to encourage you the more to it, you know with what Ardour and
Generosity and Kindness the Most Christian King gave a secure
retreat to the Queen, my Son, and Myself, when we were forced out
of _England_, and came to seek for Protection and Safety in his
Dominions; how he embraced my Interest, and gave me such Supplies
of all Sorts as enabled me to come to you; which, without his
obliging Assistance, I could not have done: _This he did_ at a Time
when he had so many and so considerable Enemies to deal with: _and
you see still continues to do_.
I shall conclude as I have begun, and assure you I am as sensible
as you can desire of the signal Loyalty you have expressed to me;
and shall make it my chief study (as it always has been) to make
you and all my Subjects happy.
These were the Acts of that memorable parliament.
CHAPTER I.
An Act of Recognition.