or made a profession of Protestantism a condition on which land might be held in fee. The estates of those who had been in rebellion, or had refused conformity, might have been granted to Englishman or Scot, or to any other of the Reformed creed, whose allegiance could be depended on; and though it might have been hard measure, it would have been in strict conformity with the usage and example of the Catholics themselves. Once more it was decided to try a gentler method -to insist only on the abolition of the traditionary tribal rights which bred perennial anarchy; to leave the Catholics in possession of their estates; to make no curious enquiry into their creed; to let them be sheriffs and magistrates; to allow them seats in Parliament, and the same private toleration of their religion which all along they had enjoyed. It was hoped that they would recognize and respect the leniency of their treatment, and that the further assimilation of Ireland to English ways and character might be left to the gradual action of time. Experience was to show that the Irish did not understand forbearance, that they interpreted lenity into fear, and respected only an authority which they dared not trifle with. CHAP. I. 1636 BOOK 1636 CHAPTER II. THE INSURRECTION OF 1641. SECTION I. THE accession of James was looked forward to by the Catholics of both England and Ireland as the period of their suffering. So long as the English Jezebel lived the son of Mary Stuart was supposed to have concealed his true feelings. When her death set him free he was expected to declare himself a member of the Roman communion. The disappointment in England took the form of the Gunpowder conspiracy. In Ireland the corporations of Cork, Limerick, and Waterford announced that they were unable to allow the proclamation of a heretic sovereign, They ensconced themselves behind a supposed decree of the universities of Salamanca and Valladolid; and it seemed at first as if a general rebellion would again burst out. Waste, bloodshed, and misery had no terrors for a population who for centuries, of their own free choice, had lived in chronic war, and deliberately preferred it to a state of peace. To rise against England was a game in which success was always possible, and defeat had no perils, for the conquerors either could not or dared not, inflict effectual punishment. The country, however, was utterly exhausted. There was no more present hope from Spain; and the late leaders were beaten to their knees. Mount joy, by abstaining from violence, succeeded in quiet- be conciliated. The illusion lasted for four years. The English undertakers, in the expectation of quiet, flocked over into Munster and Leinster. English order and law began to root themselves, and Protestantism to become a settled institution. The gentle dealing with the insurgents was construed as usual into fear. They determined on one more desperate effort to save their country before it was too late. O'Neill and Tyrconnell, whose sister he had married, were again the intending leaders. They had written to Flanders to the Archduke for support. The conspiracy was discovered. The Earls tacitly confessed their guilt by flying abroad and refusing to return. Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, a hot youth of twenty-one, tried his hand alone, burnt Derry, and murdered the governor. He was hunted down and killed. A few of his followers were hanged, and had places assigned them in the Irish martyrology; and Ireland was once more quiet. But forbearance was now ex CHAP. II. 1636 BOOK. I. 1636 hausted; and the systematic colonization of Ulster, long understood by English statesmen to be the only remedy for the chronic disorder, yet delayed in mistaken tenderness, was at last resolved on. Though times were changing, the theory of landowning as a beneficial possession, as something yielding an annual profit, which the owner is entitled to spend on his own pleasures, had not yet superseded the more ancient principle. The lord of an estate was still essentially a tenant of the crown, entrusted with high administrative powers for which he was liable to give an account. When there was no standing army, and every able-bodied man was called on, if necessary, to defend his country or the law, the landlord was his natural officer. A great nobleman could bring into the field hundreds or thousands of retainers, who had been trained to look to him as their leader, and to whom he was the representative of authority. Military power carried with it military obligations, and a commander who betrayed his trust was exposed, justly and necessarily, to the extreme penalties of treason. The desirableness of governing the Irish, wherever possible, through chiefs of their own race, had hitherto indisposed the English Government in the highest degree to inflict forfeiture. It was a measure to which, except in desperate extremities, they had never resorted. But England had determined also that Irish anarchy should end; and if the Irish leaders showed themselves hopelessly and radically incurable, their opportunities of mischief must be taken away. In the three southern provinces the Irish element had been weakened. In Ulster it remained substantially intact. By this last treason of the two Earls and their confederates six counties were escheated to the crown-Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, II. 1636 and Armagh. Antrim and Down were already CHAP. partially occupied by Scots-Western Highlanders, who for three centuries had been forming settlements in Ireland. They had been scarcely distinguishable hitherto from the native race, but they were capable of being reclaimed. Their chief, Sir Randal MacDonnell, or MacConnell, was created Earl of Antrim. The six escheated counties contained in all two million acres. Of these, a million and a half, bog, forest, and mountain, were restored to the Irish. The half million acres of fertile land were settled with families of Scotch and English Protestants. The long peace in England and the vast expansion of practical energy which followed the Reformation had produced hundreds of thousands of active enterprising men, who were looking for openings to push their fortunes. They had been turning their thoughts to America, but here in Ireland was an America at their own doors, with the soil ready for the plough. The grants were eagerly taken up. Unlike the Norman conquerors, who were merely military leaders, the new colonists were farmers, merchants, weavers, mechanics, and labourers. They went over to earn a living by labour, in a land which had produced hitherto little but banditti. They built towns and villages; they established trades and manufactures; they enclosed fields, raised farmhouses and homesteads where till then there had been but robbers' castles, wattled huts, and mud cabins, or holes in the earth like rabbit burrows: while, without artificial distinctions, they were saved from degenerating into the native type by their religion, then growing in its first enthusiasm into a living power which pervaded their entire being. Those who suffered were the chiefs, who were dis |