sioners enquired into the merits of this gentleman, it appeared that he had given no assistance whatever to the garrison at Enniskillen ; that in the town of Enniskillen 'he had declared publicly, that he hoped to see all those hanged that took up arms for the Prince of Orange;' and that his house had been burnt by the Protestant soldiers as a punishment for his disloyalty. The worst case was Lady Orkney's. This lady's sole claim to consideration lay in her being the daughter of Sir Edward Villiers, Knight Marshal of Charles the Second's household, and of Lady Villiers, who had been governess to the Princesses Mary and Anne. To her were given the enormous Irish estates of the late King. To William these estates were represented as worth 5,000l. a year. They consisted, in fact, of a hundred thousand acres of the finest land in Munster. The rental was 26,000l. a year. The selling value at the time of the grant 332,000l.' 2 12 To King William himself the Irish Protestants were enthusiastically grateful. He had come in person to fight their battle, and he had been wounded in their cause. The descendant of a line of heroes he was upholding on the Boyne, on the Thames, and on the Meuse, almost alone, the cause for which his great ancestor had given his blood. Wherever he went he freely risked his own life, and he was known to be incapable of being influenced by mean considerations. But he was a stranger in England; of Ireland and Irish history he was utterly ignorant ; and he had to rely for information on persons with 1 Report of the Commission. 2 Ibid. and see Parliamentary History, January 15, 1700. CHAP. I. BOOK whose character and motives he had not leisure to acquaint himself. It was too plain that, notwithstanding all that she had gone through, Ireland was to be again sacrificed. Corruption and interest were to reign supreme. The wound was to be skinned over in the old false way, and Catholic to be still played against Protestant as if 1641 were forgotten, and the Tyrconnell Parliament had never been. False dice indeed! The cry ran through the country that Ireland was betrayed. It was said that the Articles of Limerick were a trick; that they were invalid till the Irish legislature had sanctioned them, and that sanction they should never have. Anthony Dopping, Bishop of Meath, who had stood up so boldly against James, preached in Christ Church that peace with a people so perfidious as the Irish' was childishness. They observed neither article nor oath longer than was for their interest.' 'They were a conquered people, and as a conquered people only could they be safely treated.' Dopping's name was struck from the list of Privy Councillors; but the ferment was not allayed. A correspondence came to light between two Catholic bishops in the late reign, showing how determined was the animosity of the Irish against the English, how utterly powerless was the moderate Catholic to control the national fanaticism. The creed made no difference in the opinion of these prelates. An Englishman, whether Catholic or Protestant, was regarded as Ireland's enemy; a Saxon, orthodox or heretic, would rather see Ireland occupied by his own countrymen, of whatever religion, than by the native race. The land, therefore, must be taken back, the alien expelled, and Ireland be Irish once more. Loyal to a Catholic King of England she might be, if she had her own laws, and if her lands were her own people's. Loyal to England she could never be.1 This was the feeling with which the colonists knew that they had to reckon; and to hope that by time or indulgence it would be soothed or obliterated were to those who understood the country the most idle of dreams. 2 Supplies meanwhile were needed to pay the army; and for this and for other reasons Parliament must now meet. Lord Sydney was appointed Viceroy. Writs were issued for an election, the Catholics being constitutionally disabled by the English act, which made the taking the Abjuration Oath and the Declaration against Transubstantiation conditions of a seat. Little mystery was usually possible with the intended business of an Irish session. The heads of the Government bills were sketched in council, sent to England for approval or alteration, and returned to the council before Parliament began. The feeling of the country was ascertained by conversation, or by direct enquiry; and, for weeks before the opening, the state correspondence was generally filled with discussions of the prospects of the meditated measures. This time, so little conscious was Sydney or his advisers of the humours which they were to encounter, that not a misgiving was entertained. When the members began to collect in Dublin, they were informed that a bill would be introduced to confirm the Articles of Limerick in the extended form in which the King had ratified them; and that the Acts of Settlement were to be re-enacted, with further concessions 1 Bishop Mahony to Bishop Tyrrell, March 8, 1690.' Printed among the Appendices to ArchVOL. I. bishop King's State of the Protest ants. 2 3 & 4 William and Mary, cap. 2. CHAP. I. 1692 BOOK II. 1692 to the Catholics. But it was intimated by the Castle officials that there was to be no discussion; 'both measures had been amply considered by the Privy Council; the two Houses were called up only to ratify what was already determined; and, if any scruple was made, there would never again be a Parliament in Ireland.'1 The brief and stormy session opened on the 5th of October, 1692. Never had the temper of a public assembly been more profoundly miscalculated. Lord Sydney's speech was short and general. 'The King,' he said, 'had risked his own person to give Ireland quiet; and Ireland, he hoped, would remember in turn the duties which it owed to its sovereign. A country so advantageously situated for trade, and so favoured in its soil, could need nothing but peace and good laws to make it as fertile and flourishing as any of its neighbours.' The address in reply was conciliatory. Both Houses expressed their most hearty thanks to William for delivering them from the Papist tyranny. They passed a Recognition Act with special expressions of gratitude. They admitted, without difficulty, that the kingdom of Ireland was dependent on, and inseparably united to, the Crown of England. An act passed in Charles the Second's time, to encourage the immigration of Protestant French and Flemings, was renewed; an additional clause being attached, giving them the untrammelled exercise of their religion, and the rights of freemen without the disabilities of Nonconformity. So far 1 Account of the Parliament of 1692.' MSS. Ireland. Record Office. 2 4 William and Mary, cap. 1. Irish Statutes. 3 14 & 15 Charles II. cap. 13. 4 4 William and Mary, cap. 2. the session went smoothly, but so far only. The pent-up indignation then burst out, and the entire policy of the Government was denounced in a torrent of declamation. The Lower House drew a petition to the Crown complaining of the reversals of outlawries, the misappropriation of the forfeitures, the pardons and protections which prevented Protestants from recovering their farms, the idle and mischievous attempts at reconciling the irreconcilable. If England intended to govern Ireland on these principles, she was not to count on the assistance of the Irish Parliament. William, or William's advisers, conceived perhaps that they, and not the colonists, had conquered the Catholics, and that they therefore were entitled to dictate the concessions which were to make the Catholics into good subjects. The colonists, on whom the immediate peril fell, and who understood well that they must either rule or perish, declined to be consenting parties to so wild a scheme. To ask them, in their present humour, to confirm the Articles of Limerick, was to ask them to sign away their lives. To pass the first article was to give Romanism a legally recognised existence. The second article, with the omitted clause, 'would open a passage to the Papists to repossess themselves of the estates. which they had forfeited.' Instead of showing a readiness to confirm the Articles, they required to be told by what means 'the additional paragraph had been maintained.' They quarrelled on every line of the new Act of Settlement. The Government introduced a bill to declare void the acts of the late pretended Parliament. 1 'Petition of the Irish House of Commons to the Crown, October, This, it might have been 1692. MSS. Rolls House, Ire- CHAP. I. 1692 |