"When Elizabeth was England's King,
That dreadful name thro' Spain did ring
How altered is the case, ah sa' me!
The juggling days of good Queen Jamie."
On the accession of Charles I., in 1625, it was so generally supposed he would favour the Catholic cause, that the earliest act of the new Parliament in London was to vote a petition, begging the King to enforce the laws against recusants and Popish priests. The Viceroy, Lord Falkland, advised the Irish Catholics to propitiate him with a voluntary subsidy. They offered the enormous sum of £120,000, to be paid in three annual instalments, and in return he promised them certain "graces." The contract was ratified by royal proclamation, in which the concessions were accompanied by a promise that a Parliament should be held to confirm them. The first instalment of the money was paid, and the Irish agents returned home to find themselves cruelly deceived and basely cheated. Falkland was recalled by the Puritan party, on suspicion of favouring the Catholics; Viscount Ely and the Earl of Cork were appointed Lords Justices; and a reign of terror was at once commenced.
The Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Bulkely, was foremost in commencing the persecution. He marched, with the Mayor and a file of soldiers, to the Franciscan[[470]] church in Cook-street, on St. Stephen's Day, 1629, dispersed the congregation, seized the friars profaned the church, and broke the statue of St. Francis. The friars were rescued by the people, and the Archbishop had "to take to his heels and cry out for help," to save himself. Eventually the Franciscans established their novitiates on the Continent, but still continued their devoted ministrations to the people, at the risk of life and liberty. Their house in Cook-street was pulled down by royal order, and three other chapels and a Catholic seminary were seized and converted to the King's use. Wentworth assembled a Parliament in July, 1634, the year after his arrival in Ireland. Its subserviency was provided for by having a number of persons elected who were in the pay of the crown as military officers. The "graces" were asked for, and the Lord Deputy declared they should be granted, if the supply was readily voted. "Surely," he said, "so great a meanness cannot enter your hearts as once to suspect his Majesty's gracious regards of you, and performance with you, when you affix yourself upon his grace." This speech so took the hearts of the people, that all were ready to grant all that might be demanded; and six subsidies of £50,000 each were voted, though Wentworth only expected £30,000. In the meanwhile neither Wentworth nor the King had the slightest idea of granting the "graces" and the atrocious duplicity and incomparable "meanness" of the King is placed eternally on record, in his own letter to his favourite, in which he thanks him "for keeping off the envy [odium] of a necessary negative from me, of those unreasonable graces that people expected from me."[[471]] Wentworth describes himself how two judges and Sir John Radcliffe assisted him in the plan, and how a positive refusal was made to recommend the passing of the "graces" into law at the next session.
"Charles' faith" might now safely rank with Grey's; and the poor impoverished Irishman, who would willingly have given his last penny, as well as the last drop of his blood, to save his faith, was again cruelly betrayed where he most certainly might have expected that he could have confided and trusted. One of the "graces" was to make sixty years of undisputed possession of property a bar to the claims of the crown; and certainly if there ever a country where such a demand was necessary and reasonable, it was surely Ireland. There had been so many plantations, it was hard for anything to grow; and so many settlements, it was hard for anything to be settled. Each new monarch, since the first invasion of the country by Henry II., had his favourites to provide for and his friends to oblige. The island across the sea was considered "no man's land," as the original inhabitants were never taken into account, and were simply ignored, unless, indeed, when they made their presence very evident by open resistance to this wholesale robbery. It was no wonder, then, that this "grace" should be specially solicited. It was one in which the last English settler in Ulster had quite as great an interest as the oldest Celt in Connemara. The Burkes and the Geraldines had suffered almost as much from the rapacity of their own countrymen as the natives, on whom their ancestors had inflicted such cruel wrongs. No man's property was safe in Ireland, for the tenure was depending on the royal will; and the caprices of the Tudors were supplemented by the necessities of the Stuarts.
But the "grace" was refused, although, probably, there was many a recent colonist who would have willingly given one-half of his plantation to have secured the other to his descendants. The reason of the refusal was soon apparent. As soon as Parliament was dissolved, a Commission of "Defective Titles" was issued for Connaught. Ulster had been settled, Leinster had been settled, Munster had been settled; there remained only Connaught, hitherto so inaccessible, now, with advancing knowledge of the art of war, and new means of carrying out that art, doomed to the scourge of desolation.
The process was extremely simple. The lawyers were set to work to hunt out old claims for the crown; and as Wentworth had determined to invalidate the title to every estate in Connaught, they had abundant occupation. Roscommon was selected for a commencement. The sheriffs were directed to select jurors who would find for the crown. The jurors were made clearly to understand what was expected from them, and what the consequences would be if they were "contumacious." The object of the crown was, of course, the general good of the country. The people of Connaught were to be civilized and enriched; but, in order to carry out this very desirable arrangement, the present proprietors were to be replaced by new landlords, and the country was to be placed entirely at the disposal of the Sovereign.[[472]]
It was now discovered that the lands and lordships of De Burgo, adjacent to the Castle of Athlone, and, in fact, the whole remaining province, belonged to the crown. It would be useless here to give details of the special pleading on which this statement was founded; it is an illustration of what I have observed before, that the tenure of the English settler was quite as uncertain as the tenure of the Celt. The jury found for the King; and as a reward, the foreman, Sir Lucas Dillon, was graciously permitted to retain a portion of his own lands. Lowther, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, got four shillings in the pound of the first year's rent raised under the Commission of "Defective Titles." The juries of Mayo and Sligo were equally complacent; but there was stern resistance made in Galway, and stern reprisals were made for the resistance. The jurors were fined £4,000 each and were imprisoned, and their estates seized until that sum was paid. The sheriff was fined £1,000, and, being unable to pay that sum, he died in prison. And all this was done with the full knowledge and the entire sanction of the "royal martyr."
The country was discontented, and the Lord Deputy demanded more troops, "until the intended plantation should be settled." He could not see why the people should object to what was so very much for their own good, and never allowed himself to think that the disturbance had anything to do with the land question. The new proprietors were of the same opinion. Those who were or who feared to be dispossessed, and those who felt that their homes, whether humble or noble, could not be called their own, felt differently; but their opinion was as little regarded as their sufferings.
The Earl of Ormonde's property was next attacked, but he made a prudent compromise, and his party was too powerful to permit of its refusal. A Court of Wards was also established about this time, for the purpose of having all heirs to estates brought up in the Protestant religion; and a High Commission Court was instituted, which rivalled the exactions of the Star Chamber in England.
In 1640 another appeal was made by the King for assistance, and Wentworth headed the contribution with £20,000. He had devoted himself with considerable ability to increasing the Irish revenue and the trade of the country had improved, although the Irish woollen manufacture had been completely crushed, as it threatened to interfere with English commerce. The Lord Deputy now saw the advantage of procuring a standing army in Ireland, and he proceeded to embody a force of 10,000 foot and 1,000 horse. These men were principally Irish and Catholics, as he knew they would be most likely to stand by the King in an hour of trial, notwithstanding the cruel persecutions to which they had been subjected. But the Deputy's own career was nearer its termination than he had anticipated. When he forsook the popular side in England, Pym had remarked significantly: "Though you have left us, I will not leave you while your head is on your shoulders." The Puritan faction never lost sight of a quarry when once they had it in sight, and it scarcely needed Stafford's haughtiness and devotion to the King to seal his doom. The unhappy King was compelled to sign his death-warrant; and the victim was executed on the 12th of May, 1641, redeeming in some manner, by the nobleness of his death, the cruelties, injustices, and duplicity of which he had been guilty during his life.