A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

State of Ireland.

It has been already related that, on his flight, James stated his intention of finding if possible a new centre of action in Ireland. The view was a natural one, for he had throughout his reign been preparing that island as a refuge in case of danger. He had there acted with more freedom than was possible in England, and gone far to carry out his plans for re-establishing Catholicism. Talbot, Lord Tyrconnel, a perfectly unscrupulous man, was at the head of the Government. Almost all the other important offices were in Romanist hands. Rice, chief Baron of the Exchequer, made the law courts subserve the same policy; he openly asserted his intention of assaulting the Act of Settlement; all who had or thought they had claims against the actual possessors of land, brought their claims into his court, and no proof was held too weak, no witness too untrustworthy, for the purpose of re-establishing the old Catholics in their possession of the soil. From private acts he proceeded to public. Charter after charter was forfeited; municipal corporations re-established, with reckless indifference to all forms of right, on a Roman Catholic basis. While aldermen in the boroughs thus became Roman Catholic, sheriffs of the same religion were appointed, and in their hands lay the choice of juries, so that the whole legal apparatus was directed against Protestantism. The army meanwhile had been similarly reorganized; 6000 Protestant veterans had been disbanded and their places occupied by vehement and disorderly Catholics, who lived, we are told, constantly at free quarters on the Protestant inhabitants.

The arrival of William in England had brought matters to a crisis. The Papists thought their time was at length come. The whole country Panic among the Englishry. was full of panic and rumours of a coming massacre. Many of the English fled. The gentry and yeomen gathered themselves together to the towns and strong houses, to attempt if possible to make good for themselves that security which the Government would not give them. The two most important of these centres were Enniskillen and Londonderry. At the former, early in 1689, the Protestant population refused admittance to two companies of Popish infantry which had been ordered to be quartered on them. The gentry collected, drove the soldiers away, appointed Gustavus Hamilton governor, garrisoned the houses round Lough Erne, and held the district for King William. At Londonderry the same process took place. A regiment of 1200 Papists, under the Earl of Antrim, was sent to the city, and the mayor and sheriffs, who by the new charters were Papists, were proceeding to admit them, when thirteen young apprentices of Scotch birth took upon themselves to close the gates, Londonderry and Enniskillen garrisoned. and the Protestant gentry were summoned from the neighbouring country to defend the city. In two days it was strongly garrisoned, and the troops withdrew. It was in vain that Lord Mountjoy, a Protestant, who still remained faithful to James, attempted a compromise. Some few troops under Lundy were indeed admitted, but the country was still held for the Protestants, and Lundy was obliged, in appearance at all events, to accept the new Government.

Meanwhile William had attempted to enter into negotiations with William's negotiation with Tyrconnel. Tyrconnel. For this purpose he had employed as his agent Richard Hamilton, who had once held a commission in James's army, but who now professed to have changed his allegiance. Hamilton pledged his word that, if he failed in his commission, he would come back in three weeks; but, forfeiting his promise, he returned to his old allegiance, and became a chief leader on the side of James. But the character of the quarrel was already changing, the real object of Tyrconnel, in common with the greater part of the Irish Catholics, was to uphold Tyrconnel's object Irish independence. neither James nor William, but to destroy for ever the English supremacy. For this purpose he was willing to use the name of James, trusting in fact to the assistance of Louis, to whom he opened his real design. He succeeded in ridding himself of Mountjoy, whose loyal influence was likely to thwart his plans, by sending him on a mission to St. Germains, where James now held his Court, and where he was at once apprehended. He then summoned the Irish to arms. An army of 50,000 Papists was collected, and many thousands more took arms on their own behalf, and ravaged the Protestant settlements around them. To complete the Irish supremacy, Tyrconnel ordered the Protestants to His temporary success. be disarmed. The destruction wrought is inconceivable. Property which has been estimated at £5,000,000 was destroyed. Whole herds of cattle were killed and left to rot in the fields; 50,000 are said to have been thus killed in six weeks, while about 400,000 sheep were similarly slain. Unable to withstand this general movement, the Protestants in the south and west were overpowered, or retreated if possible to the strongholds of Londonderry and Enniskillen. In those two places the flower of the English settlers stood at bay, surrounded on all sides by hordes of liberated serfs now in mutiny against their former masters. An army was ordered to march northwards under the traitor Richard Hamilton. The Protestants fled before it; 30,000 of them collected as a last asylum behind the walls of Londonderry.

He gets James over.

The country was in this condition when James, in answer to the messages which Tyrconnel had sent him, determined, with the assent of Louis, and with considerable assistance in officers and arms, himself to visit Ireland. He landed at Cork, and soon appeared in the capital, while William, unable to act with energy on account of the difficulties which surrounded him, was assailed by unthinking men with violent abuse for not taking stronger measures to prevent those disasters which he was really watching with the greatest dismay.

On his arrival in Dublin it was gradually brought home to James that it was no feeling of passionate loyalty which was exciting the Irish Character of Irish Jacobites. population. Among those who attended his Court there were two distinct factions. Some Englishmen, with the loyal feelings which animated English Jacobites, were anxious to re-establish James and to retain the English influence in Ireland. Another party, which included Tyrconnel and almost all the Irish Papists, were fighting to destroy the English supremacy, they cared not how, and intriguing to secure the assistance of France. James would naturally have inclined to the former party, but soon learnt that the power of his partisans was entirely gone.

He made a feeble struggle, and, contrary to the wish of the French and Irish, proceeded himself to the siege of Londonderry. On his march he found that the Protestants, as they retired, had destroyed all the crops and houses behind them. He journeyed through a desert, Siege of Londonderry. and when he found that the inhabitants of the city had got rid of their treacherous governor Lundy, had taken matters into their own hands, and appointed Walker, a clergyman, and Major Henry Baker, joint governors, he determined to return instantly to Dublin, there to hold a Parliament. The prosecution of the siege was intrusted to a French general, Maumont, and Richard Hamilton. The defence was so vigorous that the siege was soon turned into a blockade; and while the gallant city was holding out to the last extremity, the Parliament at Dublin met.

As a matter of course, considering the circumstances under which it was collected, it consisted entirely of Catholics. It proceeded to act Wild legislation of the Irish Parliament. with a recklessness which might be expected from an enslaved nation suddenly called to power, and from men who for years had been unused to public life. The great Act of Settlement, that compromise which in Charles II.'s reign had settled the share of land to be held by the Protestant emigrants who had followed Cromwell's victorious arms, was repealed. Many thousands of square miles were at a single blow transferred from English to Celtic landlords. The Act itself may have been unjust, but for years it had been the basis of society, and men had acted as though their titles were secure. Its repeal was therefore a violent act of unjust confiscation. Moreover, as far as James was concerned, nothing could be more disastrous, nothing could more surely destroy any influence he might yet keep in England, where it seemed to foreshadow the justice Protestants might expect from his hands were his reign re-established. Such slight opposition as James offered (for he had the wisdom to see some of the disastrous consequences of the measure) had no effect but to cause profound distrust of himself. Other legislation even more disastrous met with no opposition at his hands. In his want of money he issued false coinage of copper and brass, intrinsically worth perhaps a sixtieth of its nominal value. Thus of course all creditors and mortgagees, who were pretty certain to be Protestants, were ruined. The money was rendered current by threats of punishment against those who refused it. Prices were kept down by law; and to complete this wild legislation, the great Act of Attainder was passed, containing between 2000 or 3000 names. No inquiry was instituted as to the grounds of accusation against those who were attainted, and opportunities were thus afforded for any man who had a personal enemy to introduce his name in the Bill. A limit of time was set within which all those named were bound to surrender themselves to justice or be liable to execution without trial; while, to prevent the King's mercy from interfering with their vengeance, the Commons passed a law that after November the right of pardon should cease.

Its effect on English Jacobites.