estates had been re-granted; so that he confiscated nearly the whole province.

544. There was a regular trial for each case; and he obtained verdicts in all, for the good reason that he threatened, punished, and imprisoned sheriffs, juries, and lawyers who thwarted him-Catholics and Protestants without distinction. This caused a great outcry; but he persisted in his reckless course, though admonished by his friends, who saw dark clouds ahead. There was no use in appealing against this intolerable tyranny; for his master the king, who was pursuing much the same course in England, supported him in everything.

545. By similar dishonest means he confiscated the whole of Clare and a large part of Tipperary. Over all those vast tracts, in Connaught and Munster, plantation went on for years; and the only thing that prevented a complete clearing out of the inhabitants was want of a sufficient number of settlers. One main object he accomplished all through; for out of every transaction he made money for the king.

546. At this time there was a flourishing Irish trade in wool and woollen cloths; but he adopted measures that almost destroyed it, lest it should interfere with the woollen trade of England. On the other hand he took means— purchasing seed and bringing skilled workmen from France -to create a linen trade, which could do no harm in England; and he thus laid the foundation of what has turned out a great and flourishing industry in Ulster.

547. Meantime the king was getting more deeply into trouble in England, and was in sore need of money. So Wentworth once more summoned parliament in 1639, and heading the subscription list himself with £20,000, he succeeded in having a large sum voted.

548. He was now, 1640, made earl of Strafford; and he raised an army of 9,000 men in Ireland, nearly all Catholics, who were well drilled and well armed, intending them to be employed in the service of the king. But his career was drawing to a close. He was recalled in 1640

to take command against the Scotch covenanters. Soon afterwards he was impeached by the English house of commons; some of the most damaging charges against him coming from Ireland: and in May 1641 he was beheaded on Tower Hill.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REBELLION OF 1641.

(1641-1642.)

549. This great rebellion was brought about by the measures taken to extirpate the Catholic religion; by the plantations of Chichester and Strafford; and by the nonconfirmation of the graces, which made the people despair of redress. There were complaints from every side about religious hardships. As to the plantations, no one could tell where they might stop; and there was a widespread fear that the people of the whole country might be cleared off to make place for new settlers. Besides all this, those who had been dispossessed longed for the first opportunity to fall on the settlers and regain their homes and farms.

550. Some of the Irish gentry held meetings to force a redress of these hardships by insurrection. The leading spirit was Roger or Rory O'Moore of Leix, a man of unblemished character; and among the others were Sir Phelim O'Neill of the family of Tyrone and his brother Turlogh, lord Maguire of Fermanagh and his brother Rory, Magennis, O'Reilly, and some of the Mac Mahons.

551. They hoped for help from abroad; for many of their banished kindred had by this time risen to positions of great influence in France, Spain, and the Netherlands. And they sent for Owen Roe O'Neill, a soldier who had greatly distinguished himself in the service of Spain, nephew of the great Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, in

He replied

viting him home to lead the insurgent army. urging an immediate rising and holding out hopes of French help from cardinal Richelieu.

552. The 23rd of October 1641 was the day fixed on for a simultaneous rising. Dublin Castle with its large store of arms, and many of the fortresses and garrisons all over the country were to be seized, and the arms taken. Instructions were given to make the gentry prisoners, but to kill no one except in open conflict; and in general to have as little bloodshed as possible. The Ulster settlers from Scotland, being regarded as kinsmen, were not to be molested.

553. On the evening of the 22nd of October, when the preparations had been completed in Dublin, a man named Owen O'Connolly, to whom Mac Mahon had confided the secret, went straight to Sir William Parsons one of the lords justices, and told him of the plot. Parsons at first gave no heed to the story, for he perceived that O'Connolly was half drunk. But on consultation with his colleague Sir John Borlase, they arrested Maguire and Mac Mahon on the morning of the 23rd: these were subsequently tried in London and hanged. Rory O'Moore and some others then in Dublin escaped. Instant measures were taken to put the city in a state of defence.

554. But though Dublin was saved, the rising broke out on the 23rd all through the north. Sir Phelim O'Neill, by a treacherous stratagem, obtained possession of Charlemont fort. The rebels gained possession of Newry, Dungannon, Castleblayney, and many smaller stations. Sir Phelim exhibited a forged commission, giving him authority, which he alleged he had received from king Charles, to which was attached the great seal he had found in one of the castles.

555. At the end of a week nearly all Ulster was in the hands of the rebels, and Sir Phelim had an army of 30,000, armed with knives, pitchforks, scythes, and every weapon they could lay hands on. During the first week of the rising the original intention (552) was carried out,

and there was hardly any bloodshed. But most of the people who rose up were persons who had been deprived of their lands, and after a time they broke loose from all discipline and wreaked their vengeance without restraint and without mercy on the settlers. The country farm houses all over the settlements were attacked by detached parties. Multitudes were stripped and turned out half naked from house and home-old and young, men, women, and children; and hundreds, vainly trying to make their way to Dublin or others of the Government stations, perished by the wayside, of exposure, hardship, and hunger.

But there was even worse for numbers were murdered, often with great cruelty. Some of these excesses were carried out by the orders of O'Neill himself; but the greatest number were the acts of irresponsible persons wreaking vengeance for their own private wrongs.

556. The numbers of victims have been wildly exaggerated but Dr. Warner, an English writer, a Protestant clergyman, who made every effort to come at the truth, believes that in the first two years of the rebellion, 4,000 were murdered, and that 8,000 died of ill usage and exposure. But even this is probably in excess.

557. There were wholesale murders also on the other side. Some of the refugees who had fled to Carrickfergus, burning with their own wrongs, sallied out in November with the Scottish garrison, and slaughtered a number of harmless people in Island Magee, who had taken no part in any disturbance.

The two lords justices sent parties of military from Dublin through the country all round, who slaughtered all the people they met, whether engaged in rebellion or not. Their general, Sir Charles Coote, committed horrible cruelties, especially in Wicklow.

558. Many Protestants were protected by individual Catholics. The priests exerted themselves, often at the risk of their own lives, sometimes hiding the poor fugitives under the very altar cloths. The Protestant bishop, Dr.

Bedell, who was very popular, was not molested; and numbers of fugitive settlers had a safe asylum in his house. The people at last confined him in Cloghoughter Castle merely to protect him; and on his death in February 1642, they attended his funeral in crowds with great expressions of regret.

559. The sanguinary episode of this memorable year in Ulster reminds us of what took place on a much larger scale forty years before in the same province. One was an unpremeditated outburst of merciless popular rage: the other the slower and surer destruction of much larger numbers by the carefully planned arrangements of Mountjoy.

560. Towards the end of 1641, the old Anglo-Irish nobility of the Pale, who were all Catholics and all loyal, hearing of some threats uttered by Sir Charles Coote to extirpate the whole Catholic population, and finding themselves slighted and insulted by the lords justices on account of their religion, and their houses burned by Coote, combined for their own protection; and soon all the Pale was in revolt. In a short time the rebellion extended through all Ireland.

At this time king Charles and his parliament were in open hostility in England: and the Puritans and the Scotch Presbyterians were amongst the most successful of his opponents.

561. At the opening of 1642 we find in the distracted country four distinct parties, each with an army :-The old Irish, who aimed at complete separation from England; the old Anglo-Irish Catholics, who wanted religious and civil liberty, but not separation; the Puritans under general Munro, the most determined of the king's enemies, including the Scots of Ulster; and lastly the Protestant loyalist party in the Pale, who held Dublin.

The native Irish party, led by Rory O'Moore, were the special opponents of the Puritans.

562. The war went on during the early part of this year, 1642, with varying fortunes. sometimes the rebels