series of statutes, which, up to that hour, were utterly destitute of
legal sanction—abandoned all his ill-advised schemes of ecclesiastical
policy, and substantially, as will speedily appear, relinquished the
most important prerogatives of the crown—devolving its functions
entirely into the hands of an encroaching and tyrannical popular
convocation, whose sole authority was derived from the power of the
sword, and not from the constitutional law of the land.
The extent to which the Estates meant to carry their pretensions, was
speedily exemplified; for, on 6th September, the demand made by the
Commissioners in March preceding, as to the appointment of the Officers
of State, Privy Counsellors, and Lords of Session, was read in the
house; and, on the 16th, the King signified to the Estates that he
would nominate the executive officers of his government above alluded
to, with “the advice” of the Estates; thus transferring the undoubted
and constitutional prerogative, which, except in those troublous
times, has ever belonged to the Sovereign of these realms, into the
hands of the Parliament, and combining, in one popularly constituted
and self-created body, both the legislative and executive functions:
a system of government which has ever been found alike injurious to
the cause of genuine freedom, and mischievous in its consequences to
society, wherever it has existed. As might be expected, when “the house
had receaved this gratious ansswer from his Majesties owne mouthe,
they all arrosse, and bowed themselves to the ground.”[285] The results
of this most unwise act of the King was speedily manifested in the
apponitments which followed.
On the 20th day of the same month, (vide Acts, vol. v., 406,) the King
exhibited lists of privy-counsellors and officers of state, expressing
a hope that the house would only state reasonable objections. Argyle,
however, vehemently objected to Morton as chancellor. The latter
retorted that for twenty years he had educated and protected Argyle,
and had obtained for him the numerous beneficial possessions and
honours which he enjoyed. The advice of the house was procrastinated;
and on the 22d a proposal was made that the _election_ of the officers
of state and counsellors should take place “by billets or schedules,”
on the ground that “men, for feares or houpes, might stand in awe to
use the liberty of their consciences!” The King justly remarked that,
in his opinion, “that man that feared to voice freelie was not worthy
to sitt in the House.” There was much debate on the subject. Morton,
to avoid dissension betwixt the King and the People, besought that his
name as chancellor might be withdrawn; and subsequently his Majesty
proposed Loudoun as chancellor, and urged the house to give its fiat
upon his list; and, at length, after much delay and heart-burning,
Loudoun was named Lord Chancellor, with the unanimous concurrence of
the house, but to the disappontment of Argyle, who evidently aspired
to the office. During this interval, the struggles and intrigues
which prevailed for place and for power, were incessant; and bitter
jealousies among the “covenanted” statesmen, sprung up as rife as among
men of less spiritual pretension. The treasury was put in commission,
to divide the power and emolument among the parties, when Glencairn,
Lindsay, and Argyle were fitted with places. Orbiston was patronised by
Hamilton for the office of Clerk-Register, (Hay being under process,)
while Johnston was the elect of his adherents; but, ultimately,
Gibson of Durie was appointed and Johnston was dubbed a knight, and,
for his consolation, appointed a Lord of Session, and Orbiston made
Justice-Clerk. The Marquis of Huntly and eight other Lords nominated by
the King, were superseded, and an equal number of the covenanting Lords
substituted in their place as Members of Council. And, to make room for
their friends, Sir Robert Spottiswood, (President of the Session,) Sir
William Elphingston, (Justice-Clerk,) Sir John Hay, and Sir Patrick
Nisbit, were removed as judges, and Leslie of Newton, Sir Thomas Hope,
(the Lord Advocate’s son,) Hepburn of Huntly, and Johnston appointed
in their stead. Having now moulded the executive departments to their
own satisfaction, and reduced the royal authority to a shadow, the
Parliament proceeded in the work of reformation at a rapid pace. The
conformation of the executive at that time being eminently illustrative
of the spirit of the Scottish Estates, we subjoin, in a note, a list
of the functionaries who were installed under the first reformed
Parliament of Charles I.,[286] leaving all details of Parliamentary
proceedings and squabbles among the jarring factions which then
prevailed, to be gathered from the appropriate chronicles of the times.
while the King was resident in Scotland during these transactions,
and harrassed by the unceasing turmoils among the leading men in his
northern parliament, and tortured with the rising flame of faction
in England, the natural effects of those commotions, and the total
disruption of society in Britain, were fearfully developed in Ireland.
On the 1st of November 1641, his Majesty received, by express,
accounts of a rebellion and widely extended massacre by the Papists of
Ireland, of his Protestant subjects in that portion of his empire. Of
that rebellion we shall extract an account from the pages of Hume,
whose liberality will scarcely be called in question by the most
liberal parties of the present day, in regard to religious sects of
all sorts;[287] and this we prefer to any attempt of our own, lest
our Presbyterian leanings might subject us to misconstruction in
exhibiting the characteristics of that atrocious occurrence. It is an
episode, doubtless, in the annals of the Church of Scotland, but an
episode, closely connected with that history, and full of instruction
at the present day—and not the less so that the conflagration which
overspread Ireland with horrors, was kindled by the fires which were
first lighted up on Dunse Law and at Newburn. The moral of that sad
tale may be practically applied with important benefit in the passing
hour, when disruption in our constitutional establishments is imminent,
when democracy is stalking abroad with its torch and its dagger, and
when incendiarism and murder are perpetrated in Ireland to an appalling
extent with impunity, and seemingly beyond the reach of repression in
that devoted land.
“After Strafford fell a victim to popular rage, the humors excited
in Ireland by that great event could not be suddenly composed, but
continued to produce the greatest innovations in the government.
“The British Protestants, transplanted in Ireland, having every moment
before their eyes all the horrors of Popery, had naturally been carried
into the opposite extreme, and had universally adopted the highest
principles and practices of the Puritans: monarchy, as well as the
hierarchy, was become odious to them; and every method of limiting
the authority of the Crown, and detaching themselves from the King of
England, was greedily adopted and pursued. They considered not, that as
they scarcely formed the sixth part of the people, and were secretly
obnoxious to the ancient inhabitants, their only method of supporting
themselves was by maintaining royal authority, and preserving a great
dependence on their mother-country. The English Commons, likewise,
in their furious persecution of Strafford, had overlooked the most
obvious consequences; and, while they imputed to him, as a crime,
every discretionary act of authority, they despoiled all succeeding
governors of that power, by which alone the Irish could be retained in
subjection: and so strong was the current for popular government in all
the three kingdoms, that the most established maxims of policy were
everywhere abandoned, in order to gratify this ruling passion.
“Charles, unable to resist, had been obliged to yield to the Irish, as
to the Scottish and English Parliaments; and found, too, that their
encroachments still rose in proportion to his concessions. Those
subsidies, which themselves had voted, they reduced by a subsequent
vote to a fourth part: the court of high commission was determined to
be a grievance; martial law abolished; the jurisdiction of the council
annihilated; proclamations and acts of state declared of no authority;
every order or institution, which depended on monarchy, was invaded;
and the prince was despoiled of all his prerogative, without the least
pretext of any violence or illegality in his administration.
“The old Irish remarked all these false steps of the English, and
resolved to take advantage of them. Though their animosity against
that nation, for want of an occasion to exert itself, seemed to be
extinguished, it was only composed into a temporary and deceitful
tranquillity: their interests, both with regard to property and
religion, secretly stimulated them to a revolt. No individual of
any sept, according to the ancient customs, had the property of any
particular estate; but as the whole sept had a title to a whole
territory, they ignorantly preferred this barbarous community before
the more secure and narrower possessions assigned them by the English.
An indulgence, amounting almost to a toleration, had been given to the
Catholic religion: but so long as the churches and the ecclesiastical
revenues were kept from the priests, and they were obliged to endure
the neighbourhood of profane heretics, being themselves discontented,
they continually endeavoured to retard any cordial reconciliations
between the English and the Irish nations.
“There was a gentleman called Roger More, who, though of a narrow
fortune, was descended from an ancient Irish family, and was much
celebrated among his countrymen for valour and capacity: this man
first formed the project of expelling the English, and asserting the
independency of his native country. He secretly went from chieftain
to chieftain, and roused up every latent principle of discontent: he
maintained a close correspondence with Lord Maguire and Sir Phelim
O’Neale, the most powerful of the old Irish: by conversation, by
letters, by his emissaries, he represented to his countrymen the
motives of a revolt. He observed to them, that by the rebellion of the
Scots, and factions of the English, the King’s authority in Britain
was reduced to so low a condition, that he never could exert himself
with any vigour in maintaining the English dominion over Ireland;
that the Catholics in the Irish House of Commons, assisted by the
Protestants, had so diminished the royal prerogative and the power of
the lieutenant, as would much facilitate the conducting, to its desired
effect, any conspiracy or combination which could be formed; that the
Scots, having so successfully thrown off dependence on the crown of
England, and assumed the government into their own hands, had set an
example to the Irish, who had so much greater oppressions to complain
of; that the English planters, who had expelled them their possessions,
suppressed their religion, and bereaved them of their liberties,
were but a handful in comparison of the natives; that they lived in
the most supine security, interspersed with their numerous enemies,
trusting to the protection of a small army, which was itself scattered
in inconsiderable divisions throughout the whole kingdom; that a great
body of men, disciplined by the government, were now thrown loose, and
were ready for any daring or desperate enterprise; that though the
Catholics had hitherto enjoyed, in some tolerable measure, the exercise
of their religion from the moderation of their indulgent prince, they
must henceforth expect that the government will be conducted by other
maxims and other principles; that the puritanical parliament, having at
length subdued their sovereign, would, no doubt, as soon as they had
consolidated their authority, extend their ambitious enterprises to
Ireland, and make the Catholics in that Kingdom, feel the same furious
persecution to which their brethren in England were at present exposed;
and that a revolt in the Irish, tending only to vindicate their native
liberty against the violence of foreign invaders, could never, at any
time, be deemed rebellion; much less during the present confusion,
when their prince was, in a manner, a prisoner; and obedience must be
paid, not to him, but to those who had traitorously usurped his lawful
authority.
“By these considerations, More engaged all the heads of the native
Irish into the conspiracy. The English of the pale, as they were
called, or the old English planters, being all Catholics, it was hoped
would afterwards join the party, which restored their religion to its
ancient splendour and authority. The intention was, that Sir Phelim
O’Neale and the other conspirators, should begin an insurrection on
one day throughout the provinces, and should attack all the English
settlements; and that, on the same day, Lord Maguire and Roger
More should surprise the castle of Dublin. The commencement of the
revolt was fixed on the approach of winter, that there might be more
difficulty in transporting forces from England: succours to themselves
and supplies of arms they expected from France, in consequence of a
promise made them by Cardinal Richelieu; and many Irish officers, who
served in the Spanish troops, had engaged to join them as soon as they
saw an insurrection entered on by their Catholic brethren. News, which
every day arrived from England, of the fury expressed by the Commons
against all Papists, struck fresh terror into the Irish nation, and
both stimulated the conspirators to execute their fatal purpose, and
gave them assured hopes of the concurrence of all their countrymen.
“Such propensity to a revolt was discovered in all the Irish, that it
was deemed unnecessary as it was dangerous to entrust the secret to
many hands; and the appointed day drew nigh, nor had any discovery
been yet made to the government. The king, indeed, had received
information from his ambassadors, that something was in agitation
among the Irish in foreign parts; but, though he gave warning to the
administration in Ireland, the intelligence was entirely neglected:
secret rumours likewise were heard of some approaching conspiracy; but
no attention was paid to them. The Earl of Leicester, whom the King had
appointed lieutenant, remained in London: the two justices, Sir William
Parsons and Sir John Borlace, were men of small abilities; and, by an
inconvenience common to all factious times, owed their advancement
to nothing but their zeal for the party by whom everything was now
governed. Tranquil from their ignorance and inexperience, these men
indulged themselves in the most profound repose on the very brink of
destruction.
“But they were awakened from their security on the very day before
that which was appointed for the commencement of hostilities.[288] The
castle of Dublin, by which the capital was commanded, contained arms
for 10,000 men, with thirty-five pieces of cannon and a proportionable
quantity of ammunition: yet was this important place guarded, and that
too without any care, by no greater force than fifty men. Maguire and
More were already in town with a numerous band of their partisans;
others were expected that night: and, next morning, they were to enter
on what they esteemed the easiest of all enterprises, the surprisal
of the castle. O’Conolly, an Irishman, but a Protestant, betrayed the
conspiracy to Parsons: the justices and council fled immediately for
safety into the castle, and reinforced the guards: the alarm was
conveyed to the city, and all the Protestants prepared for defence.
More escaped; Maguire was taken; and Mahone, one of the conspirators,
being likewise seized, first discovered to the justices the project of
a general insurrection, and redoubled the apprehensions which already
were universally diffused throughout Dublin.
“But though O’Conolly’s discovery saved the castle from a surprise, the
confession extorted from Mahone came too late to prevent the intended
insurrection. O’Neale and his confederates had already taken arms in
Ulster: the Irish, everywhere intermingled with the English, needed
but a hint from their leaders and priests to begin hostilities against
a people whom they hated on account of their religion, and envied for
their riches and prosperity. The houses, cattle, goods of the unwary
English were first seized: those who heard of the commotions in their
neighbourhood, instead of deserting their habitations, and assembling
for mutual protection, remained at home, in hopes of defending their
property; and fell thus separately into the hands of their enemies.
After rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty—and the most barbarous
that ever in any nation was known or heard of—began its operations:
a universal massacre commenced of the English, now defenceless, and
passively resigned to their inhuman foes: no age, no sex, no condition
was spared: the wife, weeping for her butchered husband, and embracing
her helpless children, was pierced with them, and perished by the same
stroke: the old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, underwent a
like fate, and were confounded in one common ruin. In vain did flight
save from the first assault; destruction was everywhere let loose,
and met the hunted victims at every turn: in vain was recourse had to
relations, to companions, to friends: all connections were dissolved,
and death was dealt by that hand from which protection was implored
and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished
English, living in profound peace and full security, were massacred by
their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long upheld a continual
intercourse of kindness and good offices.
“But death was the slightest punishment inflicted by those rebels: all
the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains
of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate
revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause.
To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity:
such enormities, though attested by undoubted evidence, appear almost
incredible: depraved nature, even perverted religion, encouraged by the
utmost license, reach not to such a pitch of ferocity; unless the pity
inherent in human breasts be destroyed by that contagion of example,
which transports men beyond all the usual motives of conduct and
behaviour.
“The weaker sex themselves, naturally tender to their own sufferings
and compassionate to those of others, here emulated their more robust
companions in the practice of every cruelty: even children, taught
by the example, and encouraged by the exhortation of their parents,
essayed their feeble blows on the dead carcasses or defenceless
children of the English. The very avarice of the Irish was not a
sufficient restraint of their cruelty: such was their frenzy, that
the cattle which they had seized, and by rapine made their own, yet,
because they bore the name of English, were wantonly slaughtered, or,
when covered with wounds, turned loose into the woods and deserts.
“The stately buildings or commodious habitations of the planters, as if
upraiding the sloth and ignorance of the natives, were consumed with
fire, or laid level with the ground; and where the miserable owners,
shut up in their houses, and preparing for defence, perished in the
flames, together with their wives and children, a double triumph was
afforded to their insulting foes.
“If any where a number assembled together, and, assuming courage from
despair, were resolved to sweeten death by revenge on their assassins;
they were disarmed by capitulations and promises of safety, confirmed
by the most solemn oaths: but no sooner had they surrendered, than the
rebels, with perfidy equal to their cruelty, made them share the fate
of their unhappy countrymen.
“Others, more ingenious still in their barbarity, tempted their
prisoners by the fond love of life, to imbrue their hands in the
blood of friends, brothers, parents; and having thus rendered them
accomplices in guilt, gave them that death which they sought to shun by
deserving it.
“Amidst all these enormities, the sacred name of religion resounded on
every side; not to stop the hands of these murderers, but to enforce
their blows, and to steel their hearts against every movement of
human or social sympathy. The English, as heretics, abhorred of God,
and detestable to all holy men, were marked out by the priests for
slaughter; and, of all actions, to rid the world of these declared
enemies to Catholic faith and piety, was represented as the most
meritorious. Nature, which, in that rude people, was sufficiently
inclined to atrocious deeds, was farther stimulated by precept, and
national prejudices empoisoned by those aversions, more deadly and
incurable, which arose from an enraged superstition. While death
finished the sufferings of each victim, the bigoted assassins, with joy
and exultation, still echoed in his expiring ears, that these agonies
were but the commencement of torments infinite and eternal.
“Such were the barbarities by which Sir Phelim O’Neale and the Irish
in Ulster signalised their rebellion:—an event memorable in the annals
of humankind, and worthy to be held in perpetual detestation and
abhorrence. The generous nature of More was shocked at the recital of
such enormous cruelties: he flew to O’Neale’s camp; but found that his
authority, which was sufficient to excite the Irish to an insurrection,
was too feeble to restrain their inhumanity. Soon after, he abandoned
a cause polluted by so many crimes, and he retired into Flanders; Sir
Phelim, recommended by the greatness of his family, and perhaps too by
the unrestrained brutality of his nature, though without any courage
or capacity, acquired the entire ascendant over the northern rebels.
The English colonies were totally annihilated in the open country of
Ulster: the Scots, at first, met with more favourable treatment. In
order to engage them to a passive neutrality, the Irish pretended to
distinguish between the British nations; and, claiming friendship and
consanguinity with the Scots, extended not over them the fury of their
massacres. Many of them found an opportunity to fly the country: others
retired into places of security, and prepared themselves for defence:
and by this means, the Scottish planters, most of them at least,
escaped with their lives.