armed as their antagonists were. Bearing in mind that the Ulster Protestants had as yet received no external aid whatever, I hold this condition of things to be perfectly inconsistent, not only with the preposterous exaggerations of Clarendon and Temple, but with any very considerable loss of life among the Ulster Protestants capable of bearing arms.

This complete defeat of the insurgents was effected by the posthumous valour of the 150,000 Protestants massacred by Sir John Temple. Mr. Froude, indeed, says:*"The English Parliament being occupied with fighting the King, the Scots sent a force (England providing the money) which gradually drove the rebels out of Ulster." This is either gross ignorance or gross misrepresentation. The strange inactivity of the Scotch troops in Ulster is one of the most difficult to comprehend and remarkable incidents of the war. I can imagine no explanation of it but that it was adopted in concert with the like conduct on the part of Parsons and Borlace. It admits of no doubt that a policy of nursing the rebellion was pursued by them at first for the purpose of improving the harvest of confiscations which they hoped by and by to reap for themselves and their friends.

Monroe arrived at Carrickfergus about the middle of April, 1642, with 2,500 men. He immediately recovered Newry from the rebels, and, marching

* English in Ireland, vol. i., p. 115.

northwards, raised the siege of Coleraine, meeting no resistance in either case. Except some vigorous cattlelifting, he may be said to have hibernated thereafter till 1646, when he was disastrously defeated by Owen Roe O'Neill in the battle of Benburb. 2. If he had acted with energy on his arrival in Ireland-joining his troops to the Ulster Protestant force under Sir R. and W. Stewart, the insurrection in the north would have been stamped out at once; and very probably Owen O'Neill would have declined to enlist in a cause the utter defeat of which he would have learned from his expatriated kinsmen.

In August, 1642, Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, who had served with great distinction under Gustavus Adolphus, arrived in Carrickfergus with a reinforcement of 7,500 men. Leslie outdid Monroe. He marched into Tyrone, and, rivalling the French king who "marched up the hill, and then-marched down again," returned to Carrickfergus, and soon after to Scotland, having first truly predicted for Monroe the fate that awaited him at Benburb four years later. The conduct of Leslie and Monroe, and the tardy and feeble efforts made by England and Scotland at this time to avenge the slaughter of such a multitude of their countrymen, induce me to entertain a suspicion that the Puritan leaders did not give credit to Temple's fabulous history. There is no doubt that the people of England accepted it literally.

1

A graphic account of an incident not very creditable to England, at a time when the Protestants were to the Roman Catholics in that kingdom as forty to one,' * is given by the Rev. Joseph Lister, a Dissenting minister in Yorkshire :

"About this time did the rebellion in Ireland break out, and many thousand Protestants, of all ages, sexes, and degrees, were put to death with great inhumanity and cruelty; and great fear come upon the Protestants in England, those villains giving out, that what they had done there was by the King's commission, and that in a little time the English Protestants (or heretics, as they called them) should drink of the same cup; and it was verily believed by many that it would be so, if God should suffer it; and oh, what fears and tears, cries and prayers, night and day, was there then in many places, and in my dear mother's house in particular! I was then about twelve or thirteen years of age, and though I was afraid to be killed, yet was I weary of so much fasting and praying, and longed to see those days and nights over. I remember one public fast day (for godly ministers appointed many, and kept them in their respective places),-Mr. Wales kept many at Pudsey; it was two miles from Bradford, and thither my pious mother and all the family went constantly upon those days; I have known that holy Mr. Wales spend six or seven hours in praying and preaching, and rarely go out of the pulpit; but sometimes he would intermit for one quarter of an hour, while a few verses of a psalm were sung, and then pray and preach again; and oh! what confession of sin did he make! what prayers, tears, and wrestling with God was in that place in these days! What tears and groans were to be seen and heard in that chapel! I am sure it was a place of weepers. But that day, I say, which I am speak

* Hume's History of England, vol. vi., p. 392.

ing of, I think about three o'clock in the afternoon, a certain man that I remember well (his name was John Sugden) came and stood up in the chapel door, and cried out with a lamentable voice: Friend,' said he, we are all as good as dead men, for the Irish rebels are coming; they are come as far as Rochdale, and Littlebrough, and the Balings, and will be at Halifax and Bradford shortly.' He came, he said, out of pity and good will, to give us notice. And having given this alarm, away he ran towards Bradford again, where the same report was spread about. Upon which the congregation was, all in confusion; some ran out, others wept, others fell to talking to friends, and the Irish massacre being but lately acted, and all circumstances put together, the people's hearts failed with fear; so that the Rev. Mr. Wales desired the congregation to compose themselves as well as they could, while he put himself and them into the hands of Almighty God by prayer and so he did, and so dismissed us. But oh! what a sad and sorrowful going home had we that evening, for we must needs go to Bradford, and knew not but incarnate devils and death would be there before us, and meet us there. What sad and strange conjectures, or rather conclusions, will surprise and fear make! Methinks I shall never forget this time. Well, we got home, and found friends and neighbours in our case, and expecting the cut-throats coming. But at last some few horsemen were prevailed with to go to Halifax, to know how the case stood. They went with a great deal of fear, but found matters better when they came there, it proving only to be some Protestants that were escaping out of Ireland for their lives into England; and this news we received with great joy."

After six months' higgling between the English and Scottish Parliaments, 2,500 men, under Robert Monroe, were landed at Carrickfergus, in April, 1642, to avenge the wholesale slaughter of their fellow

countrymen; and five months later, Lord Leven landed at the same place with 7,500 more, making up the 10,000 that Scotland had undertaken to furnish. Elizabeth had sent 20,000 to subdue the rebel Earl of Tyrone; and a little before this time, England and Scotland confronted one another on the banks of the Tweed, with about 50,000 men, in a religious quarrel involving no question of doctrine considered by either party necessary to salvation-but matters relating to the government of the church, and the colour, shape, etc., of the garments in which the clergy should officiate.* The Long Parliament enlisted 4,000 recruits for Lord Essex's army in London alone in one day.t

Monroe arrived at Carrickfergus on the 15th of April, 1642, and set out on the 27th for the recovery of Newry. The resistance offered to him on the way was quite contemptible. At Kilwarlin Woods, near Banbridge, he says he killed 152 men with a loss to himself of two men. It follows that the Irish fought,

*"The grievances which tended" says Hume (History of England, vol. vi., p. 389) "chiefly to inflame the Parliament and nation, especially the latter, were the surplice, the rails placed about the altar, the bows exacted on approaching it, the Liturgy, the breach of the Sabbath, embroidered copes, lawn sleeves, the use of the ring in marriage, and of the cross in baptism. On account of these were both parties contented to throw the government into such violent convulsions; and to the disgrace of that age and this island, it must be acknowledged that the disorders in Scotland entirely, and those in England mostly, proceeded from so mean and contemptible an origin."

† Hume, vol. vi., p. 490.