Violent opposition to the Bill;
but it passes without a division.
There was much discontent, especially among those who wished to fish in the troubled waters of a new Bill. It was, however, decided by 93 to 74 that the Lord Lieutenant’s answer was satisfactory, but a violent debate took place upon the question that the Bill do now pass. Strong language was hurled across the floor and many swords were half-drawn. The December sun set upon a scene of confusion, and when candles were called for they were quickly blown out by the opposition. Some shouted that what they had gotten with the hazard of their lives should not be lost with Ayes and Noes. Others called for an adjournment, and ‘between you and me,’ says an eye-witness, the members, who were hungry as well as angry, ‘wanted very little of going to cuffs in the dark.’ A spontaneous adjournment followed, but the Bill passed quietly two days later. A division was challenged by Archer Upton—who held some of Antrim’s land and lost all by his reinstatement—but he did not find a seconder. Orrery kept his men so well in hand that only one Munster member had voted in the minority, and he was a great advocate for the doubling ordinance. Churchill attributed the final triumph entirely to Ormonde, who ‘by an eloquence peculiar to himself seemingly unconcerned but certainly extemporary, so charmed their fears and jealousies that they that were most displeased with the bill were yet so pleased with the overtures he had made them that when it came to pass it had only one negative.’ It passed the Lords without a single dissentient voice.[47]
FOOTNOTES:
[29] State Papers, Ireland, July 18, October 24, 1662. The Commissioners are given in 15th Report of Record Commissioners (1825), p. 34. Act for enlargement of time, Irish Statutes, 14 & 15 Car. II. cap. 12 (Royal assent September 27, 1662).
[30] Irish Commons Journal, February 10, 1662-3; Clarendon to Ormonde, February 28, in Carte Transcripts, vol. xlvii., and Lister’s Life of Clarendon, iii. 239.
[31] Speech of Sir Audley Mervyn delivered to the Duke of Ormonde in the presence chamber in Dublin Castle, February 13, 1662-3, in Irish Commons Journal, i. 617-630. The Speaker was ordered to have his speech printed and entered in the Journals.
[32] Egerton MS., p. 789, gives all the decrees of the Court of Claims, January 13, 1662-3, to Friday, August 21, 1663—Innocent Papists 566, Innocent Protestants 141, Nocent 113. Mervyn’s speech (14 folio pages) in Irish Commons Journal, February 10, 1663; Lord Lieutenant’s letter, ib. March 10; proposed bills, ib. April 10. Ormonde to Clarendon, February 21, March 7 and 12, April 8, 1662-3, to the King, March 28, Carte MSS., vol. cxliii.; Clarendon to Ormonde, February 28 and April 18, Carte Transcripts, vol. xlvii.
[33] Ormonde to the King, May 8, 1663, Carte MSS., vol. cxliii.; to Bennet, ib. June 10 and August 22.
[34] A narrative by Sir Theophilus Jones, &c., Trinity College MSS., f. 3, 18 (no. 47). This paper is unsigned but appears to be the original draft in Jones’s hand. Account of the Irish Plot in Ormonde Papers, 1st series, ii. 251; Firth’s Ludlow, appx. 450, 475. Life and death of the famed Mr. Blood, London, 1680. The Horrid Conspiracy of impenitent traitors, &c., London, 1663.