CHAPTER I.

SOWING THE WIND AGAIN. A.D. 1620-1629.

THE new men, such as Boyle, Parsons, and Loftus, into whose hands the reins of power had now fallen, were all of strong Protestant tendencies. The policy which excluded the Roman Catholics from every office of state, of necessity placed the government in the hands of the extreme men of the contrary way of thinking. Accordingly, we find a regular harassing of the Roman Catholics by the Castle authorities, the Oath of Supremacy being constantly required, and the Act of Uniformity steadily enforced, to the exclusion from public offices and professions and the systematic impoverishment of those who refused the one or disobeyed the other. The bishops, with Usher at their head, were one and all of the extreme ultra-Protestant school. Usher introduced the Nine Articles of Lambeth concerning predestination, grace, and justifying faith, with one or two of his own composition identifying the Pope with Antichrist, all of which were accepted by Convocation. Many of the Presbyterian clergy, who had come over with the Scotch colony, were inducted into Ulster

livings; while "to grant the Papists toleration" was denounced from all the pulpits as "a grievous sin."

James, on the other hand, who had his eye on the subsidies, was anxious, in the later years of his reign, to hold out to the recusants the prospect of toleration in return for a liberal vote of money. He discouraged the persecution of the recusants, and, in deference to their complaints, replaced the Puritan deputy, Sir Oliver St. John, by Lord Falkland, a man of much less pronounced views. On the accession of Charles, who was believed to have strong leanings towards the Roman Catholics, the hopes of the latter rose, and some attempt was made to restore the Romish worship in a few of the churches. Even a Roman Catholic seminary was opened, and a body of Carmelite friars ventured to establish themselves in Dublin. The result was a furious outcry on the part of the clergy and the Protestant faction. The Popish College was seized, and handed over to the University of Dublin, and the friars were driven from their monastery by a file of musketeers. So was the see-saw kept up between toleration and persecution, the Crown ever ready to take advantage of the latter in a profitable bargain wherein the former was to be bought and sold.

Charles, on coming to the throne, found himself mightily hampered with his father's debts. James's extravagance and bad management had left the treasury empty, and the country was embroiled in a disastrous war for the restoration of his son-in-law to the Palatinate. Money was to be raised at all events; and the king was

prepared to promise anything for a good round sum in hard cash. He was perfectly willing to be bribed by the recusants into granting them liberty of conscience, or to close with the offer of the Connaught landowners and confirm their titles for a consideration. But the Protestant party, though small, was powerful. Concession, therefore, to the recusants was dangerous, and to enrol the Connaught grants was to kill the goose with the golden eggs. The easiest way out of the difficulty was to promise everything, secure the money, and then shuffle out of the performance; and such a scheme especially commended itself to a mind like that of Charles.

A deputation from the principal nobility and gentry of Ireland waited on the king, and offered a voluntary contribution of £120,000, to be paid in three years, in return for the concession of civil and religious liberty. The concessions to be made were reduced into writing, and were comprised in fifty-one articles; they were denominated "Graces," and were in the nature of a "petition of right." The substance of them was, that the king's title to land should not be set up where the owner had had sixty years' possession. The surrenders in Connaught were to be enrolled without payment of further fees. The Connaught landlords were to be confirmed in their estates by statute, and a Parliament for effecting that object was shortly to be summoned. All undertakers were to be allowed an extension of time for the fulfilment of their covenant. The extortion practised by the Court of Wards was to be restrained,

as also was the oppressive levying of the king's taxes by means of the soldiery. The jurisdiction of the Court of the Castle Chamber-the Irish Star Chamber-in private causes was to be restricted; and the testimony of convicted and condemned felons was to be refused where the liberty of the subject was concerned. Recusants were to be allowed to practise in the courts of law, and sue the livery of their lands out of the Court of Wards, an oath of civil allegiance being substituted for the Oath of Supremacy, while the clergy were to be prohibited from committing the "contumacious" to their own private prisons. Such was the very reasonable charter of liberty asked for by the leading men of Ireland, which, it is hardly too much to say, if Charles had honestly conceded it, would have reduced the rebellion of 1641 to a local rising without a prospect of success.

The king gave his word, and consented to the granting of the "Graces" with alacrity. Formal instructions as to their substance were transmitted to the lord-deputy; great satisfaction prevailed; and the first subsidy of £40,000 was cheerfully paid. Falkland at once issued writs for the summoning of a Parliament, which was to give the royal promise the force of law and convert what was mere waste paper into a binding instrument. And here the duplicity of the king declared itself. Care was taken not to obtain the king's license under the great seal for the holding of the Parliament, and that no heads of the bills to be introduced were previously sent over to the English Privy