BOOK II. 1711 the battle raged furiously as ever. In an address Finding it impossible to proceed with such a House in a policy which was to prepare Ireland to receive the Pretender, Ormond decided at once on getting rid of it. The Parliament was prorogued and never met again. When the constituencies should have been prepared sufficiently, and there was ground for hope of a High Church majority that could be depended on, the unusual experiment was to be tried of a dissolution and a new election. Ormond returned to London to repair to the army in Flanders, and the government was left to the Chancellor, Sir Constantine Phipps, a friend of Swift and an English Tory. 1 Commons' Journals, November 8, 1711. Convocation meanwhile, which was still allowed to sit, kept the fire burning, and continued to inflame the Queen against the unhappy Dissenters whom, in the next Parliament, they hoped to be able to annihilate. In a highly curious address the Bishops lamented over the growth in Ireland of impiety and atheism, due in reality to the school of Toland, and Tindal, and Asgill, but which it pleased the clergy to attribute to the sectaries who came over in the time of the wicked and detestable Oliver Cromwell, and had spread the enthusiasm which, under a specious pretence of sanctity, was ever accompanied with sedition.' Both Government and Church, they said, had erred in being over-lenient. Concession had only invited encroachment, and but for the late happy change in government, brought about by the providence of God, Episcopacy had been utterly undone. usurper, The form which Providence had assumed was that of Bolingbroke, who believed extremely little in either God or devil. These reverend gentlemen however, with the extravagant injustice which only religious hatred can inspire, insisted that the Presbyterians would make common cause with deists, socinians, enemies of revealed religion, and even Papists themselves, to dissolve the present form of government. The Low Churchmen and Whigs, they said, were little better. Impiety, profanity, and immorality universely prevailed in the society affected by their influence. 'Wicked and blasphemous healths were used by persons disaffected to the constitution; the prayers in the Litany for deliverance from plague, pestilence, and famine, were turned into a curse upon bishops, priests, and deacons, and all congregations committed to their CHAP. II. 1711 II. BOOK charge, who refused to drink to the glorious and immortal memory of the dead.' 1711 6 The Bishops, and only the Bishops, understood Ireland, and how to deal with it, not perceiving that they themselves, with their Jacobitism and their blind and stupid bigotry, were the real cause of the weakness of Protestantism. To the Dissenters and the Whigs they added, as a third plague of Ireland, the Papists. 'The Papists,' they said, 'lived continually in hope of aid from the Catholic Powers to root out the Protestants, and shake off the yoke of Britain.' They described them as visibly exalted with any ill success to her majesty's arms, and dejected with accounts of victory, their dependence being on France for being restored to their estates.' In noting the causes of the little impression which had yet been made upon the Roman Catholic masses, they pointed, with some sagacity, to the unsteadiness of the measures which had been used towards those of that persuasion; sometimes measures of great severity, and then again indulgence and toleration, the laws made against them being rarely executed, and they in consequence, when in greatest difficulties, hoping for a return of connivance.1 1 'Address of Convocation to the Crown, 1712.' MSS. Record Office, Ireland. SECTION VII. II. 1712 MEANWHILE a second feud, violent as the quarrel CHAP. between Lords and Commons, had sprung up between the Government and the city of Dublin. To secure a Tory House of Commons, the first step was to appoint Tory sheriffs in the counties, and Tory mayors in the towns. The Dublin corporation set an example of resistance, and from the certainty that, if successful, the precedent would be followed elsewhere, the whole powers of the Castle were exerted to bend or break them. The usual practice had been for the aldermen to elect freely such members of their body as the majority preferred. An obsolete claim was revived by the Government to nominate a select number of candidates, between whom the choice was to lie. Both sides were obstinate. The city elected a Whig mayor, whom the Government refused to recognize. The Catholic mob were for the Castle; the well-to-do citizens and free men were to a man for the corporation; and, for two years, Dublin was without a municipal government. The sheriff slipped away to England to avoid compromising himself with either party, and courts could not be held for want of jurors, and justice was in abeyance through the suspension of all lawful authority.1 Ormond's presence being needed in London, the 1 An enormous mass of papers connected with this strange business are in Dublin Castle. Com pare Shrewsbury to Bolingbroke, BOOK Duke of Shrewsbury took his place as Viceroy. The English constituencies had returned a large Tory ma1712 jority. Queen Anne had by this time probably come to a final resolution to support the Pretender's claims to the succession. Bolingbroke was growing confident of success; and Shrewsbury, more uncertain of his own intentions than Bolingbroke probably supposed, was sent over to make sure of Ireland. Rumour, busy with his name before his arrival, announced that he had been received into the Church of Rome, that the duchess was a professed Catholic, that a chapel was being fitted up for them in the Castle. To the surprise of everyone he allowed fovourites of Lord Wharton to remain in offices about his own person, and, more remarkably, immediately after his arrival, he agitated the Tory party by a signal celebration of King William's birthday.1 This, however, might be only part of a game which Bolingbroke had instructed him to play. The important matters were the Parliament, and an empty treasury; and the Bishops' projects against the Dissenters made it necessary to proceed to an election. It was felt to be dangerous. If the new House proved like the last, the Ministers seem to have resolved to make an end of the Irish Constitution.2 1 Long History of a Short Session 2 Swift, who was in England, her majesty ought to exert her power to the utmost upon any uneasiness given on your side to her self or her servants. Neither can I answer that even the legislative powers here may not take cognizance of anything that may pass among you in opposition to the persons and principles that are now favoured by the Queen.'— 'Swift to Abp. King, October 20, 1713.' Swift's Works, vol. xvi. It appears from an unpublished letter |