As for the real disposition of that strangest of monarchs, James I,, writers are at variance. Matthew O'Connor, the elder, who had in his hands the books and manuscripts of Charles O'Connor of Bellingary, is very positive in his assertions on his side of the question:
"James was a determined and implacable enemy to the Catholic religion; he alienated his professors from all attachment to his government by the virulence of his antipathy. One of his first gracious proclamations imported a general jail-delivery, except for 'murderers and papists.' By another proclamation he pledged himself 'never to grant any toleration to the Catholics,' and entailed a curse on his posterity if they granted any."
Turning now to Dr. Madden's "History of the Penal Laws," we shall feel disposed to modify so positive an opinion. There we read:
"It is very evident that his zeal for the Protestant Church had more to do with a hatred of the Puritans than of popery, and that he had a hankering, after all, for the old religion which his mother belonged to, and for which she had been persecuted by the fanatics of Scotland."
Hume seems to support this judgment of Dr. Madden when he says that "the principles of James would have led him to earnestly desire a unity of faith of the Churches which had been separated."
Both opinions, however, agree in the long-run, since Dr. Madden is obliged to confess that "new measures of severity, as the bigotry of the times became urgent, were wrung from the timid king. He had neither moral nor political courage."
Still, on the day of his coronation, the Irish could little imagine what was in store for them at the hands of the son of Mary Stuart; hence their great rejoicing, till the first stroke of bitter disappointment came to open their eyes, and awaken them to the hard reality. This was the flight of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, which had been brought about by treachery and low cunning. These chieftains were, as they deserved to be, the idols of the nation. They were compelled to fly because, as Dr. Anderson, a Protestant minister, says, "artful Cecil had employed one St. Lawrence to entrap the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the Lord of Devlin, and other Irish chiefs, into a sham plot which had no evidence but his."
The real cause of their flight was that adventurers and "undertakers" desired to "plant" Ulster, though the final treaty with Mountjoy had left both earls in possession of their lands. That treaty yielded not an acre of plunder, and was consequently in English eyes a failure. The long, bloody, and promising wars of Elizabeth's reign had ended, after all, in forcing coronets on the brows of O'Neill and O'Donnell, with a royal deed added, securing to them their lands, and freedom of worship to all the north.
James was met by the importunate demand for land. O'Neill, O'Donnell, and several other Irish chieftains, were sacrificed to meet this demand; they were compelled to fly; and they had scarcely gone when millions of acres in Ulster were declared to be forfeited to the crown, and thrown open for "planting."
And here a new feature in confiscation presents itself, which was introduced by the first of the Stuart dynasty, and proved far more galling to Irishmen than any thing they had yet encountered in this shape.