In the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity had been passed. By these statutes Catholics were liable to a fine for not attending church; while those who failed to take the Oath of Supremacy could not obtain a university degree, practise at the Bar, hold the office of a magistrate, or sue out the livery of their lands.
The legal fine for not attending church was, indeed, only twelve pence, and was intended to go to the relief of the poor. But much more was exacted by clerks and officers for fees, and the proceeds of the tax were diverted from its statutory destination, the relief of the poor, on the pretext, as explained by Sir Arthur Chichester, the Lord Deputy, that the poor of the parishes were not fit to receive the money, being Catholics themselves; and therefore ought to pay the like penalty. Towards the close of the reign of James the First, the Catholics put forth a remonstrance in which their position is summarized in these words:—“That their children were not allowed to study in foreign universities; that all the Catholics of noble birth were excluded from offices and honours, and even from the magistracy of their respective counties; that Catholic citizens and burgesses were removed from all situations of power and profit in different corporations; that Catholic barristers were not permitted to plead in the courts of law; and that the inferior classes were burdened with fines, distresses, excommunications and other punishments, which reduced them to the lowest degree of poverty.”
From this it will be seen that the grievances under which the Catholics of Ireland, as such, laboured at the accession of Charles the First, were not confined to any rank or class, but were suffered by the highest as well as the lowest.
The same observation is equally true of another grievance to which I am about to refer, a grievance that had not ostensibly any connection with the race or the religious belief of those who complained of it, but at the same time in fact pressed almost exclusively upon the native Irish, and those who professed the Catholic faith. This grievance may be briefly described as insecurity of land tenure.
In the reign of James the First the great case, reported by Sir John Davies, under the name of the Case of Tanistry, decided that lands should descend, not according to the native custom by which the Tanist succeeded to a limited interest in the property, the estate itself being vested in the tribe, but should descend according to the law of England. In consequence of this decision, the owners or those who claimed to be owners, in order to obtain what they believed would be an indefeasible title, surrendered their estates to the Crown and took a new grant, on payment of certain fines and the expenses of the letters patent, and on the terms of paying a fixed quit rent. Unfortunately astute lawyers were able to pick holes in the patents. Sometimes the officer whose duty it was to enrol them had neglected to do so. Sometimes the lands were wrongly or insufficiently described. Sometimes they had been valued too low, or even too high. In any of these cases, and in many others, the letters patent, if impeached, would turn out worthless. I need not remind you, as you have recently had the advantage of hearing a learned discourse on Strafford’s government in Ireland, what use he had made of these flaws, for the purpose of confiscating the properties of the owners of land in Connaught and Clare, in order to procure money for his master, and land for the English plantation. You will remember that among the graces which Charles promised the Irish in return for £120,000, which they gave him, were one for freedom of worship, one for confirmation of titles, and one for limiting the right of the Crown to recover lands to a period of sixty years, after an uninterrupted and undisputed possession, and how basely Charles and Strafford behaved when the money had been paid over.
Such was the posture of affairs in Ireland when Strafford, broken in health, was summoned to England to take command of the army fighting against the Scots. This army having been defeated at Newcastle, he returned to London, there to meet his accusers, to be condemned to death, and to be sacrificed by the King who had promised that “the Parliament should not touch one hair of his head.”
Strafford’s successor was Sir Christopher Wandesford. The Irish Parliament met in June, 1640, in a very different temper from that displayed in their last preceding session. They had caught something of the spirit of their brethren in England, with whom they had been brought into touch by the proceedings against Strafford. The Commons drew up a Remonstrance of Grievances, and appointed a committee of sixteen, including four members of the Lords, to lay it before the King. In it they remind him of their liberality in contributing to his necessities, and of the fact that in them, the Catholic people, lay the strength of his revenue, and proceed to complain of their wrongs: the arbitrary decision of causes and controversies before the chief governor, the perversion of law by the judges in order to gratify the Court, the cruel punishments employed to repress freedom of speech and writing, the extended powers of the High Court of Commission, the increase of monopolies, the exorbitant fees exacted by the clergy, the denial of the Graces, and other grievances.
This committee did not receive the final answer from the King until he was on the point of setting out for Scotland. They returned to Ireland three weeks after the Parliament had been prorogued, bringing back the answer, with all the Bills which had been transmitted to England for the approbation of the Council there before being passed. Among these were the Bill for Limitation, which protected from the claims of the Crown all estates that had been enjoyed without claim for sixty years; the Bill for relinquishing the title of the Crown to the four Connaught counties, the county of Clare, and large tracts of land in Tipperary and Limerick, the title of which had been found for the King by several inquisitions, and which were ready to be disposed of on survey to British undertakers. These Bills were all to be passed when the two Houses met, and meanwhile care was to be taken to notify them to the whole nation.
These concessions, though, if intended to be honestly carried out, which might well be doubted, they might satisfy the Lords and Commons by whom they were obtained, failed to satisfy the native chiefs, and the Catholic population. The Ulster plantators of James, and the Munster plantators of Elizabeth, and the Leix and Offaly plantators of Mary, and the Wicklow plantators, who were enjoying the lands of the Byrnes, were all to remain in undisturbed possession of their estates. The Catholic religion was still to be under a ban, and those who professed it were to pay their twelve pence for every Sunday and holiday that they did not attend the parish church, and were to be exposed to the disabilities imposed by the Act of Supremacy on those that failed to take the Oath. Besides this there were sinister rumours in circulation. Sir William Parsons was reported to have said at a public entertainment in Dublin, “that within a twelvemonth no Catholic should be seen in Ireland.” A letter was intercepted coming from Scotland to a person named Freeman, in Antrim, stating that a covenanting army under the command of General Lesley was coming to extirpate the Roman Catholics of Ulster, and leave the Scots the sole possessors of the province. The English House of Commons had passed a vote that no toleration of the Romish religion should be allowed in Ireland, and they had shown their intolerance by having eight Catholic priests arrested for saying Mass in London, and having seven of them executed. Sir John Clotworthy, the employer of Connolly, the informer already mentioned, and a man well acquainted with the designs of the faction that governed the English House of Commons, was reported to have declared there in a speech “that the conversion of the Papists in Ireland was only to be effected by the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other.”
The consequence was that a genuine and general alarm spread among the Catholics of all ranks throughout Ireland. At the same time the circumstances were favourable for striking a blow for religious liberty. The Scots, who had far less to complain of than the native Irish, had obtained religious liberty by taking up arms. Why should not the Irish, more especially seeing that the troubles in the sister isle made their attempt all the easier?