III. 1689 Now was again witnessed what Calvinism, though CHAP. its fire was waning, could still do in making common men into heroes. Deserted by the English regiments, betrayed by their own commander, without stores and half armed, the shopkeepers and apprentices of a commercial town prepared to defend an unfortified city against a disciplined army of 25,000 men, led by trained officers, and amply provided with artillery.1 Expresses were sent to England for help. Lundy, to escape being torn in pieces, fled for his life. Major Baker and Dr. Walker, a clergyman of the Established Church, who had raised a regiment and seen service against the Irish, were voted into the command. Every assault failed. The siege was turned into a blockade. They were cut off from the sea by a boom across the river. Fever, cholera, and famine came to the aid of the besiegers. Rats came to be dainties, and hides and shoe leather were the ordinary fare. They saw their children pine away and die. They were wasted themselves till they could scarce handle their firelocks on their ramparts. As a shameful example of cowardice, an English fleet lay for weeks in the lough, the lazy ships visible from the church towers. There, before their eyes, were holds brimming with meal, hundreds of brave men ready and eager to come to their help, all lying enchanted by their commander's cowardice. Still indomitably they held on through three miserable months, till, on the 30th July, the Dartmouth frigate came in with two provision ships and an English officer who feared other things worse than danger and death. The boom was broken; the relieving squadron found their way to the town. The Irish The Irish camp was broken despair, and Derry was saved. up in 1 BOOK I. 1689 May 7. SECTION VI. ENNISKILLEN had been as successful as Derry. There too the Irish had failed. But the odds were desperate, and unless an army came from England, the end could not be far off.1 Meanwhile James had met his Parliament, not bringing with him the keys of Derry to grace the opening, but leaving Rosen to complete a conquest of which every day he looked for the news. On the 7th May the Lords and Commons of Ireland assembled in Dublin. By the constitution, the Irish Parliament could only meet when summoned by the King of England, and James was King of England no longer. By the constitution no measures could be submitted to them which had not been considered and approved by the English Council. Plead as they would that James was still King of Ireland, having neither abdicated that crown, nor done any act which could be construed into abdication, they were ipso facto in revolt against England. The value of their Parliamentary proceedings would depend on whether their swords were at length sharp enough to vindicate the independence which they had assumed. The meeting was itself an act of rebellion, and every person who took part in it was compromised. As between the two countries, the position was simple. If the Irish arms were successful, they were loyal subjects. If they were defeated, they were insur III. 1689 gents, and were again liable to forfeiture. The moral CHAP. bearings of the question were less simple than the political. The Episcopal Church of Ireland was still praying for James as lawful King of England, and denouncing William as a usurper. The lawful King being present among them, might be held to carry with him his constitutional powers. The maintainers of the divine right were in hopeless embarrassment. In practice, however, whatever this Parliament might do could be only provisional. If William were to remain sovereign of England, Poynings' Act must be repealed on the field of battle before the statutes of an Irish Parliament could become law. In prudence the Catholic leaders should have waited till the fighting was over, without committing themselves to acts which, unless they were victorious, might prove dangerous to them. But they were too impatient to bear delay. Ireland had an opportunity of declaring her free opinion of England's dealings with her, and was determined to use it. The Parliament which passed the Acts of Settlement was almost exclusively Protestant. The Parliament which met to destroy them was almost as exclusively Catholic. The Protestant nobles had fled to England. Had Lord Clarendon called a Parliament, the Upper House would have contained ninetysix lay Protestant peers, with twenty-four bishops, and twenty-two Catholics. Fifteen outlawries were reversed. New Catholic peers were created. Boys under age were called to serve. Thirty-six in all presented themselves in Dublin on 9th May. Among them were nine Protestants only: four bishopsMunster, Ossory, Limerick, and Cork, whose attendance was insisted on to give a semblance of fairness BOOK I. 1689 to the proceedings; and five lay Protestant peers-the Earls of Barrymore, Clancarty, and Longford, Viscount Ross, and Lord Kingsale. The rest were Catholics of the most prominent type, the majority of them legally disqualified, and called on to sit for the special business intended for the session. The House of Commons consisted, with five or six exceptions, of nominees of Tyrconnell. Elections could not be free in the heat of a revolution, and the sheriffs of counties and the mayors of the towns being necessarily Tyrconnell's creatures, the returns were managed without difficulty. Two hundred and thirty members were sent up. Six Protestants, perhaps by accident, perhaps for appearance, found places among them. It was inevitable, under the circumstances, that the most extreme men were most generally chosen. So bitter were the Catholic electors of Dublin, that Gerrard Dillon, the Prime sergeant, though of unimpeached bigotry, was rejected by them because he had bought an estate under the Acts of Settlement, and he sate for Mullingar. Immediate steps, it was well understood, would be taken for the repeal of the detested Acts of Settlement. Chief Justice Keating, still confident whither all this was tending, made a last appeal to the King's better understanding. The time was unpropitious, for Derry was still closely blockaded, and the Irish were in a passion of elation at the defeat of an English squadron in Bantry Bay, which was sent to intercept the French ships that had brought James to Kingsale. There were principles of justice, however, not to be disregarded with impunity, on which Keating ventured to insist. The soil which had been taken from the Irish owner was bare as nature made it. Thus it But it was no The had been when sold to the English. 1 'Address to King James in behalf of the Protestants,' by Judge Keating. King, Appendix, p. 22. CHAP. III. 1689 |