Chapter XXVII: Part 27

In the summer of 1633, Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of
Strafford, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. "It was
during his tenure of office as viceroy that he attempted to
establish absolutism in Ireland, in order that, by the thereby
enhanced power of the monarchy, he might be enabled to turn
the scale in favour of a despotic government in England. And,
never at a loss in the choice of his expedients, he contended
for his scheme with an energy and a recklessness
characteristic of the man. In the prosecution of his ends, he
treated some of the most influential English noblemen resident
in Ireland with the utmost indignity, simply with the object
of intimidating them, at the outset, from any further
opposition. One of them, Lord Mountnorris, was even condemned
to death on a charge of sedition and mutiny, merely for having
made use of a disrespectful expression with reference to the
lord-lieutenant, the representative of the sovereign. …
Every longing of the Irish Protestant Church for independence
was suppressed by Wentworth. According to his views, supreme
authority in Church matters belonged absolutely and
unconditionally to the king. He, therefore, abolished, in
1634, the 'Irish Articles,' which granted some concessions to
Puritanism, and which had been introduced by Archbishop Usher
in the reign of James I., and, at the same time, he united the
Irish Established Church indissolubly with that of England.
But above all things he considered it to be his duty to
increase the army, which had hitherto been in a disorganised
condition, and to put it in a state of complete efficiency; in
order to do this, however, it was of the first importance to
augment the revenue of the Crown, and in pursuance of this
object he disdained no means. He extorted large sums of money
from the Catholics by reminding them that, in case their
contributions were too niggardly, there still existed laws
against the Papists which could easily be put into operation
again. The City of London Company, which some years before had
effected the colonization of Londonderry, was suddenly called
to account for not having fulfilled the stipulations contained
in its charter, and condemned to pay a fine of £70,000. In the
same spirit he conceived the idea of obtaining additions to
the royal exchequer by a fresh settlement of Connaught; and,
accordingly, he induced the Government, regardless of the
engagements made some years previously at the granting of the
'graces,' to re-assert the claims it had formerly advanced to
the possession of this province. And now, as in the worst days
of James I., there again prevailed the old system of
investigation into the validity of the titles by which the
landed gentry of Connaught held their estates. Such persons as
were practised in disinterring these unregistered titles were
looked upon with favour, and as a means of inciting to more
vigorous efforts, a premium of 20 per cent. on the receipts
realized during the first year by the confiscation of property
thus imperfectly registered was guaranteed to the presidents
of the commission. With a cynical frankness, Wentworth
declared that no money was ever so judiciously expended as
this, for now the people entered into the business with as
much ardour and assiduity as if it were their own private
concern. … The collective titles of the province of
Connaught were at the unlimited disposal of the
lord-lieutenant; and, although, notwithstanding this result,
he, at the last moment, recoiled from the final act, and
shrank from ejecting the present owners, and re-settling the
province, it was not from any conscientious scruples that he
refrained from taking this last decisive step: to the man
whose motto was 'Thorough,' such scruples were unknown. …
Practical considerations alone … induced Wentworth to pause
in the path upon which he had entered.
{1766}
Just at that time the Crown was engaged in a contest with
Puritanism in Scotland, while, in England, the attempts of
Charles to make his rule absolute had produced a state of
public feeling which was in the highest degree critical. …
In view of these considerations, therefore, Strafford
postponed the colonization of the western province to a more
favourable season. While we turn with just abhorrence from the
contemplation of the reckless and despotic acts of this
remarkable man, we must not, on the other hand, fail to
acknowledge that his administration has features which present
a brighter aspect. … In the exercise of a certain
toleration, dictated, it is true, only by policy, he declined
to meddle directly in the religious affairs of the Catholics.
His greatest merit, however, consists in having advanced the
material well-being of the country. He took a lively interest
in agriculture and cattle-rearing, and by causing the rude and
antiquated methods of husbandry which prevailed among the
Irish agriculturalists to be superseded by more modern
appliances, he contributed very materially to the advancement
of this branch of industry. He also largely encouraged
navigation, in consequence of which the number of Irish ships
increased from year to year; and although it can not be denied
that he endeavoured to suppress the trade in woollen cloth,
from an apprehension that it might come into dangerous
competition with English manufactures, he, nevertheless,
sought to compensate the Irish in other ways, and the
development of the Irish linen industry in the north was
essentially his work. … The Irish revenue annually
increased, and the customs returns alone were trebled during
the administration of Lord Strafford. He was, accordingly, in
a position to place at the disposal of his royal master a
standing army of 9,000 men. … It was, therefore, no idle
boast, but a statement in strict accordance with the truth,
which he made when writing to Archbishop Laud on 16th
December, 1634: 'I can now say that the king is here as truly
absolute as any sovereign in the world can be.'"

_R. Hassencamp,
History of Ireland,
chapter 3._

"Of all the suggesters of the infamous counsels of Charles,
Laud and Wentworth were the most sincere:—Laud, from the
intense faith with which he looked forward to the possible
supremacy of the ecclesiastical power, and to which he was
bent upon going, 'thorough', through every
obstacle;—Wentworth, from that strong sense, with which birth
and education had perverted his genius, of the superior
excellence of despotic rule. … The letters which passed
between them partook of a more intimate character, in respect
of the avowal of ulterior designs, than either of them,
probably, chose to avow elsewhere. … Laud had to regret his
position in England, contrasted with that of the Irish deputy.
'My lord,' he writes to Wentworth, speaking of the general
affairs of church and state, 'to speak freely, you may easily
promise more in either kind than I can perform: for, as for
the church, it is so bound up in the forms of the common law,
that it is not possible for me, or for any man, to do that
good which he would, or is bound to do. … And for the state,
indeed, my lord, I am for Thorough; but I see that both thick
and thin stays somebody, where I conceive it should not; and
it is impossible for me to go thorough alone.' … Every new
act of despotism which struck terror into Ireland shot comfort
to the heart of Laud. 'As for my marginal note,' exclaims the
archbishop, 'I see you deciphered it well, and I see you make
use of it too,—do so still; thorow and thorow. Oh that I were
where I might go so too I but I am shackled between delays and
uncertainties. You have a great deal of honour here for your
proceedings. Go on a God's name!' And on Wentworth went,
stopping at no gratuitous quarrel that had the slightest
chance of pleasing the archbishop, even to the demolishing the
family tomb of the earl of Cork,—since his grace, among his
select ecclesiastical researches, had discovered that the spot
occupied by my lord of Cork's family monuments, was precisely
that spot upon which the communion-table, to answer the
purposes of heaven, ought to stand!"

_R. Browning,
Thomas Wentworth (Eminent British Statesmen, volume 2,
published under the name of John Forster)._

ALSO IN:
_S. R. Gardiner,
The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 5, section 4._

_S. R. Gardiner,
History of England,
chapter 76 (volume 8) and
chapter 90 (volume 9)._

_W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
volume 2, book 3, chapter 1._

_T. Wright,
History of Ireland,
book 4, chapters 22-24._

_T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 5, chapter 1._

IRELAND: A. D. 1641.
The Catholic rising and alleged Massacres of Protestants.

"The government which Strafford had established in Ireland
fell with him, the office of viceroy was entrusted to some of
the judges, and shorn of the powers which gave it authority
over the whole country. The Irish army, which had been formed
with so much difficulty, and maintained in spite of so much
opposition, was disbanded without any attention being
vouchsafed to the King's wish that it should be allowed to
enter the Spanish service. … Under the influence of events
in England, government based on prerogative, and on its
connexion with the English hierarchy, as it had existed in
Ireland since Elizabeth's time, fell to the ground. This
revolution however might entail important results. The Irish
people was Catholic: while the Protestant settlers were split
into two hostile factions, and thereby the highest authority
in the land, which bore a really Protestant character, was
systematically weakened and almost destroyed, the thought of
ridding themselves of it altogether was sure to arise in the
nation. The steed, never completely broken in, felt itself
suddenly free from the tight rein which hitherto it had
unwillingly obeyed. … It was the common object of all
Catholics, alike of Anglo-Saxon and of Celtic origin, to
restore to the Catholic Church the possession of the goods and
houses that had been taken from her, and above all to put an
end to the colonies established since James I. in which
Puritan tendencies prevailed. The Catholics of the old
settlements were as eager for this as the natives. The idea
originated in a couple of chiefs of old Irish extraction,
Roger O'More and Lord Macguire, who had been involved in
Tyrone's ruin, but were connected by marriage with several
English families. The first man whom O'More won over was Lord
Mayo, the most powerful magnate of old English descent in
Connaught, of the house of De Burgh. … The best military
leader in the confederacy, Colonel Plunkett, was a Catholic of
old English origin. … Among the natives the most notable
personage was Phelim O'Neil, who, after having been long in
England, and learning Protestantism there, on his return to
Ireland went back to the old faith and the old customs: he was
reckoned the rightful heir of Tyrone, and possessed unbounded
popular influence.
{1767}
The plan for which the Catholics of both Irish and English
extraction now united was a very far-reaching one. It involved
making the Catholic religion altogether dominant in Ireland:
even of the old nobility none but the Catholics were to be
tolerated: all the lands that had been seized for the new
settlements were to be given back to the previous possessors
or their heirs. In each district a distinguished family was to
be answerable for order, and to maintain an armed force for
the purpose. They would not revolt from the King, but still
would leave him no real share in the government. Two lords
justices, both Catholic, one of Irish, the other of old
English family, were to be at the head of the government. …
The preparations were made in profound silence: a man could
travel across the country without perceiving any stir or
uneasiness. But on the appointed day, October 23, the day of
St. Ignatius, the insurrection everywhere broke out." Dublin
was saved, by a disclosure of the plot to the government, on
the evening of the 22d, by a Protestant Irishman who had
gained knowledge of it. "Several other places also held out,
as Londonderry and Carrickfergus, and afforded places to which
the Protestants might fly. But no one can paint the rage and
cruelty which was vented, far and wide over the land, upon the
unarmed and defenceless. Many thousands perished: their
corpses filled the land and served as food for the kites. …
Religious abhorrence entered into a dreadful league with the
fury of national hatred. The motives of the Sicilian Vespers
and of the night of St. Bartholomew were united. Sir Phelim,
who at once was proclaimed Lord and Master in Ulster, with the
title of the native princes, as Tyrone had been, and who in
his proclamations assumed the tone of a sovereign, was not at
all the man to check these cruelties. … With all this
letting loose of ancient barbarism there was still some
holding back. The Scottish settlements were spared, although
they were the most hated of all, for fear of incurring the
hostility of the Scottish as well as of the English nation.
Immediately there was a rising in the five counties of the old
English Pale: the gentry of Louth, under the leadership of the
sheriff, took the side of the rebels. The younger men of Meath
assembled on the Boyne, and commenced hostilities against the
Protestants: so completely had their religious sympathies
prevailed over their patriotism."

_L. Von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 8, chapter 7 (volume 2)._

"Some reference to the notorious story of the massacre of 1641
is required, not because the account of it is true and is a
part of history, nor because it is false and needs refutation,
but because it is a State fiction, a falsehood with a purpose,
and as such deserves mention as much as the levying of troops
or the passing of laws. The record of the period is not the
history of a massacre, but of the deliberate invention of a
massacre. … No word of massacre had been heard of in the
first State document that referred to the so-called rebellion.
The Catholic lords of the Pale would never have united their
names and fortunes with those of murderers. … The royalists
again and again urged in their treaties with their opponents
that an investigation of the cruelties committed on both sides
should be made, and the proposal was always absolutely
refused."

_W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 3, chapter 1, section 5 (volume 2)._

"There were few places of strength in Ulster which had not
fallen by the end of the first week into the hands of the
insurgents. Sir Phelim O'Neill already found himself at the
head of some 30,000 men, as yet of course undisciplined, and
but few of them efficiently armed; and it is not to be
expected that such an irregular multitude, with wild passions
let loose, and so many wrongs and insults to be avenged, could
have been engaged in scenes of war, even so long, without
committing some deeds of blood which the laws of regular
warfare would not sanction. … Life was taken in some few
instances where the act deserved the name of murder; but the
cases of this nature, on the Irish side, at the commencement
of the rebellion, were isolated ones; and nothing can be more
unjust and false than to describe the outbreak of this war as
a 'massacre'."

_M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapter 37._

"This [Sir Wm. Petty's] estimate of 37,000 Protestants
supposed to have been murdered makes no allowance for those
who escaped to England and Scotland, and never returned to
Ireland. It seems to me more likely that about 27,000
Protestants were murdered by the sword, gun, rope, drowning,
&c., in the first three or four years of the rebellion. The
evidence of the depositions, after deducting all doubtful
exaggerations, leaves little doubt that the number so
destroyed could hardly have been less than 25,000 at all
events. But the truth is that no accurate estimate is
possible. After the Portnaw massacre the Protestants,
especially the Scotch, took an awful vengeance on their
enemies. Henceforward one side vied in cruelty with the
other."

_M. Hickson,
Ireland in the 17th Century,
introduction, page 163._

ALSO IN:
_T. Carte,
Life of James, Duke of Ormond,
book 3 (chapters 1-2)._

_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 6 (volume 2)._

_T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 5, chapters 3-4 (volume 3)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1643.
The king makes Peace with the rebels.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

IRELAND: A. D. 1645.
King Charles' treaty with the Catholics.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

IRELAND: A. D. 1646-1649.
The Rebels become Royalists.

"The truce [offered by King Charles to the rebels in 1643]
appears to have been well observed by each party, and resulted
in a treaty of peace which was signed in July, 1646, by which
the Roman Catholics obtained every demand which they put
forward. This peace was nevertheless at once broken, and
Ormond (who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant in January,
1643) was closely besieged in Dublin by a force, headed by
Cardinal Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio, who had assumed the
command of the Irish Catholics. Finding himself in so
dangerous a position, Ormond, by express direction from the
king, offered his submission to the English Parliament, to
whom he surrendered Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and such other
garrisons as remained in his hands. This transaction was
completed on the 25th of July, 1647, when Colonel Jones took
command of Dublin for the Parliament, and was made by them
Commander-in-Chief in Ireland; his total force however
amounted to but 5,000 men. The war now continued with varying
success, the commanders for the Parliament being, in addition
to Jones, Monk in Ulster and Lord Inchiquin in Munster;
{1768}
The latter in 1648 joined Ormond, who in September, upon the
invitation of the Catholics, returned to Ireland, the Papal
Nuncio having been driven from the country by his own party,
who were alienated from him by his folly and insolence. At the
end of 1648 there were therefore two parties in Ireland; the
Parliamentary, which had been the English, holding Dublin and
a few garrisons, and the Catholics, who, formerly rebels, were
now held as Royalists, and whose new leader Ormond, on the
death of Charles I., proclaimed the Prince of Wales, on the
16th of February, 1649, at Carrick, as King of England,
Scotland, France, and Ireland. The English Parliament now at
last resolved to put an end to disorder in Ireland, and with
this object, in March, 1649, appointed Cromwell to the supreme
command." Before Cromwell arrived in Ireland, however, the
Irish Royalists had reduced every garrisoned place except
Dublin and Londonderry, defeating Monk, who held Dundalk, but
being defeated (August 2) by Jones when they laid siege to the
capital. Though fought at the gates of Dublin, this was called
the battle of Rathmines, Ormond retreated with a loss of 4,000
killed and 2,500 prisoners.

_N. L. Walford,
Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War,
chapter 7._

ALSO IN:
_T. Carte,
Life of James Duke of Ormond,
books 4-5 (volume 3)._

_D. Murphy,
Cromwell in Ireland,
chapters 1-3._

IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.
Cromwell's campaign.
The slaughter at Drogheda and Wexford.

'When Cromwell arrived in Ireland at the head of 12,000 men,
he found almost the whole country under the power of the
Royalists (August 15th). A Parliamentary garrison in Dublin
itself had only escaped a siege by surprising the enemy on the
banks of the Liffey (August 2nd). The general first marched
against Drogheda, then called Droghdagh or Tredah, and
summoned the garrison to surrender; Sir Arthur Ashton, the
governor, refused; he had 3,000 of the choicest troops of the
confederates and enough provisions to enable him to hold out
till winter should compel the enemy to raise the siege. But
within twenty-four hours the English batteries had made a
breach in the wall, Oliver, after twice seeing his soldiers
beaten off, led them on in person and carried the breach. A
terrible massacre followed. 'Being in the heat of action I
forbade them,' Cromwell wrote in his despatch to the
Parliament, 'to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I
think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men.' Of
these, one-half probably fell in the streets; the other half
Cromwell describes as having been slain at early dawn in St.
Peter's Church. This he looks upon as a judgment for their
previous proceedings there. 'It is remarkable,' he writes,
'that these people at first set up the mass in some places of
the town that had been monasteries; but afterwards grew so
insolent that, the last Lord's day before the storm, the
Protestants were thrust out of the great church called St.
Peter's, and they had public mass there; and in this very
place near 1,000 of them were put to the sword, fleeing
thither for safety. I believe all the friars were knocked on
the head promiscuously but two.' … Royalist accounts assert
that many hundreds of women and children were slain in St.
Peter's Church: It is, of course, possible that some of the
townspeople, fleeing thither for safety, lost their lives in
the general massacre of the garrison. There is, however, no
trustworthy witness for any lives being taken except those of
soldiers and friars. Cromwell did not sanction the killing of
any but those with arms in their hands, though he seems to
have approved of the fate of the friars. The fanatical zeal of
his letter, and the fact that he takes the full credit, or
discredit, for the slaughter of the garrison; makes it
improbable that he concealed anything; and this substantiated
by his subsequent declaration, in which he gives this
challenge:—'Give us an instance of one man, since my coming
into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished,
concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice
hath not been done, or endeavoured to be done.' With the
enemy's troops Cromwell carried out the determined mode of
warfare which he began at Drogheda. They were mostly scattered
over the country, occupied in garrison duty. Before whatever
town he came he demanded immediate surrender, or threatened to
refuse quarter. Town after town opened its gates to this grim
summons. Wexford, which refused to surrender, was stormed, and
the whole garrison, 2,000 in number, put to the sword (October
11th). … In other respects, while Cromwell's rigour and
determination saved bloodshed in the end by the rapidity and
completeness of his conquests, his conduct in Ireland
contrasted favourably on many points with that of the
Royalists there. His own soldiers, for ill-using the people
contrary to regulations, were sometimes cashiered the army,
sometimes hanged. When a treaty was made, he kept faithfully
to its terms. Garrisons that yielded on summons were allowed
either to march away with arms and baggage, or else to go
abroad and enter the service of any government at peace with
England. Before the war was over he had rid the country, on
these terms, of some 45,000 soldiers. Taking advantage of the
divisions of his enemies, he persuaded several garrisons of
English soldiers to desert the cause of Charles Stuart for the
Commonwealth. His conduct of the war was so successful that,
during the nine months of his stay in Ireland, the forces of
the Royalists were shattered, and the provinces of Leinster
and Munster recovered for the Parliament. Cromwell returned to
England in May, 1650, leaving his son-in-law Ireton to
complete the conquest of the country. The last garrisons in
Ulster and Munster surrendered during the course of the
ensuing summer and autumn. Ireton crossed the Shannon and
drove the Irish back into the bogs and mountain fastnesses of
Connaught, their last refuge, where fighting still continued
for two years after all the rest of the country had been
reduced (1651-2)."

_B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 12._

"No admiration for Cromwell, for his genius, courage, and
earnestness—no sympathy with the cause that he upheld in
England—can blind us to the truth, that the lurid light of
this great crime [the massacre at Drogheda] burns still after
centuries across the history of England and of Ireland; that
it is one of those damning charges which the Puritan theology
has yet to answer at the bar of humanity."

_F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 8._

{1769}

"Oliver's proceedings here [at Drogheda] have been the theme
of much loud criticism, and sibylline execration; into which
it is not our plan to enter at present. … To those who think
that a land overrun with Sanguinary Quacks can be healed by
sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very
horrible. Terrible Surgery this: but is it Surgery and
Judgment, or atrocious Murder merely? That is a question which
should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in
God's Judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of
Surgery;—which, in fact, is this Editor's case too. … Here
is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster this, and
false jargon scattering itself to the winds: what this man
speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this
man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first King's
face poor Ireland ever saw; the first Friend's face, little as
it recognises him,—poor Ireland! … To our Irish friends we
ought to say likewise that this Garrison of Tredah consisted,
in good part, of Englishmen. Perfectly certain this:—and
therefore let 'the bloody hoof of the Saxon,' &c., forbear to
continue itself on that matter."

_T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 5._

"Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came, he
held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience; …
liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal
belief, not of external worship; … but the rejection of the
offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished with
the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by
force, with indiscriminate slaughter."

_J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 5, with foot-note._

ALSO IN:
_D. Murphy,
Cromwell in Ireland._

IRELAND: A. D. 1651.
The Massachusetts colonists invited to Ireland by Cromwell.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651.

IRELAND: A. D. 1652.
The Kilkenny Articles.

"On 12th May, 1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered
on terms signed at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively
by the other principal armies between that time and the
September following, when the Ulster forces surrendered. By
these Kilkenny articles, all except those who were guilty of
the first blood were received into protection, on laying down
their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the
conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish
nation, and should desire to transport themselves with their
men to serve any foreign state in amity with the Parliament,
should have liberty to treat with their agents for that
purpose."

_J. P. Prendergast,
The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,
part 1, section 2._

IRELAND: A. D. 1653.
The Cromwellian Settlement.

"By the term Cromwellian Settlement is to be understood the
history of the dealings of the Commonwealth of England with
the lands and habitations of the people of Ireland after their
conquest of the country in the year 1652. … The officers of
the army were eager to take Irish lands in lieu of their
arrears, though it does not appear that the common soldiers
were, who had small debentures and no capital, and no chance
of founding families and leaving estates to their posterity.
But the adventurers [national creditors, who had loaned money
to the government for the Irish War] must be first settled
with, as they had a claim to about one million of acres, to
satisfy the sums advanced for putting down the rebellion on
the faith of the Act of 17 Charles I. (A. D. 1642), and
subsequent Acts and Ordinances, commonly called 'The Acts of
Subscription.' By these, lands for the adventurers must be
first ascertained, before the rest of the country could be
free for disposal by the Parliament to the army. … Towards
the close of the year 1653, the island seemed sufficiently
desolated to allow the English to occupy it. On the 26th of
September in that year, the Parliament passed an Act for the
new planting of Ireland with English. The government reserved
for themselves all the towns, all the church lands and tithes;
for they abolished all archbishops, bishops, deans, and other
officers, belonging to that hierarchy, and in those days the
Church of Christ sat in Chichester House on College-green.
They reserved also for themselves the four counties of Dublin,
Kildare, Carlow, and Cork. Out of the lands and tithes thus
reserved, the government were to satisfy public debts, private
favourites, eminent friends of the republican cause in
Parliament, regicides, and the most active of the English
rebels, not being of the army. They next made ample provision
for the adventurers. The amount due to the adventurers was
£360,000. This they divided into three lots, of which £110,000
was to be satisfied in Munster, £205,000 in Leinster, and
£45,000 in Ulster, and the moiety of ten counties was charged
with their payment:—Waterford, Limerick, and Tipperary, in
Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and Queen's Counties, in
Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in Ulster. But, as all
was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by lot, a
lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for
the 20th July, 1653. … A lot was then to be drawn by the
adventurers, and by some officer appointed by the Lord General
Cromwell on behalf of the soldiery, to ascertain which
baronies in the ten counties should be for the adventurers,
and which for the soldiers. The rest of Ireland, except
Connaught, was to be set out amongst the officers and
soldiers, for their arrears, amounting to £1,550,000, and to
satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced
to the army of the Commonwealth, amounting to £1,750,000.
Connaught was by the Parliament reserved and appointed for the
habitation of the Irish nation; and all English and
Protestants having lands there, who should desire to remove
out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited by the English,
were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal value,
in exchange. … The Earl of Ormond, Primate Bramhall, and all
the Catholic nobility, and many of the gentry, were declared
incapable of pardon of life or estate, and were banished. …
Connaught was selected for the habitation of all the Irish
nation by reason of its being surrounded by the sea and the
Shannon, all but ten miles, and the whole easily made into one
line by a few forts. To further secure the imprisonment of the
nation, and cut them off from relief by sea, a belt four miles
wide, commencing one mile to the west of Sligo, and so winging
along the coast and Shannon, was reserved by the Act of 27th
September, 1653, from being set out to the Irish, and was
given to the soldiery to plant. Thither all the Irish were to
remove at latest by the first day of May, 1654, except Irish
women married to English Protestants before the 2d December,
1650, provided they became Protestants; except, also, boys
under fourteen and girls under twelve, in Protestant service
and to be brought up Protestants; and, lastly, those who had
shown during the ten years' war in Ireland their constant good
affection to the Parliament of England in preference to the
king.
{1770}
There they were to dwell without entering a walled town, or
coming within five miles of some, on pain of death. All were
to remove thither by the 1st of May, 1654, at latest, under
pain of being put to death by sentence of a court of military
officers, if found after that date on the English side of the
Shannon." In the actual enforcement of the law—found
impracticable in all its rigor—there were many special
dispensations granted, and extensions of time.

_J. P. Prendergast,
The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,
preface, and parts 1-2._

ALSO IN:
_J. A. Froude,
The English in Ireland in the 18th Century,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1)._

_J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 6._

IRELAND: A. D. 1655.
Cromwell's deportation of Girls to Jamaica.

See JAMAICA: A. D. 1655.

IRELAND: A. D. 1660-1665.
The restored Stuarts and their Act of Settlement.

"On the fall of Richard Cromwell, a council of officers was
established in Dublin; these summoned a convention of deputies
from the protestant proprietors; and the convention tendered
to Charles the obedience of his ancient kingdom of Ireland.
… To secure the royal protection, they made the king an
offer of a considerable sum of money, assured him, though
falsely, that the Irish Catholics meditated a general
insurrection, and prayed him to summon a protestant parliament
in Ireland, which might confirm the existing proprietors in
the undisturbed possession of their estates. The present was
graciously accepted, and the penal laws against the Irish
Catholics were ordered to be strictly enforced; but Charles
was unwilling to call a parliament, because it would
necessarily consist of men whose principles, both civil and
religious, he had been taught to distrust. The first measure
recommended to him by his English advisers, with respect to
Ireland, was the re-establishment of episcopacy. For this no
legislative enactment was requisite. His return had given to
the ancient laws their pristine authority. … In a short time
the episcopal hierarchy was quietly restored to the enjoyment
of its former rights, and the exercise of its former
jurisdiction. To this, a work of easy accomplishment,
succeeded a much more difficult attempt,—the settlement of
landed property in Ireland. The military, whom it was
dangerous to disoblige, and the adventurers, whose pretensions
had been sanctioned by Charles I., demanded the royal
confirmation of the titles by which they held their estates;
and the demand was opposed by a multitude of petitioners
claiming restitution or compensation [protestant royalists,
loyal Catholics, &c.]. … Humanity, gratitude, and justice,
called on the king to listen to many of these claims. … From
an estimate delivered to the king, it appeared that there
still remained at his disposal forfeited lands of the yearly
rental of from eighty to one hundred thousand pounds; a fund
sufficiently ample, it was contended, to 'reprize' or
compensate all the Irish really deserving of the royal favour.
Under this impression, Charles published his celebrated
declaration for the settlement of Ireland. It provided that no
person deriving his title from the adventurers under the
parliament, or the soldiers under the commonwealth, should be
disturbed in the possession of his lands, without receiving an
equivalent from the fund for reprisals; that all innocents,
whether protestants or Catholics, that is, persons who had
never adhered either to the parliament or the confederates,
should be restored to their rightful estates." After much
contention between deputations from both sides sent to the
king, an act was passed through the Irish parliament
substantially according to the royal declaration. "But to
execute this act was found to be a task of considerable
difficulty. By improvident grants of lands to the church, the
dukes of York, Ormond, and Albemarle, the earls of Orrery,
Montrath, Kingston, Massarene, and several others, the fund
for reprisals had been almost exhausted." New controversies
and agitations arose, which finally induced the soldiers,
adventurers, and grantees of the crown to surrender one third
of their acquisitions, for the augmenting of the fund for
reprisals. "The king, by this measure, was placed in a
situation [August, 1665], not indeed to do justice, but to
silence the most importunate or most deserving among the
petitioners. … But when compensation had thus been made to a
few of the sufferers, what, it may be asked, became of the
officers who had followed the royal fortune abroad, or of the
3,000 Catholics who had entered their claims of innocence? To
all these, the promises which had been made by the act of
settlement were broken; the unfortunate claimants were
deprived of their rights, and debarred from all hope of future
relief. A measure of such sweeping and appalling oppression is
perhaps without a parallel in the history of civilized
nations. Its injustice could not be denied; and the only
apology offered in its behalf was the stern necessity of
quieting the fears and jealousies of the Cromwellian settlers,
and of establishing on a permanent basis the protestant
ascendancy in Ireland. … The following is the general
result. The protestants were previously [i. e., before the
Cromwellian Settlement] in possession of about one moiety of
all the profitable lands in the island; of the second moiety,
which had been forfeited under the commonwealth, something
less than two-thirds was by the act confirmed to the
protestants; and of the remainder a portion almost equal in
quantity, but not in quality, to one-third, was appropriated
to the Catholics."

_J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 11, chapter 4._

ALSO IN:
_J. A. Froude,
The English in Ireland,
book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1)._

_T. Carte,
Life of James Duke of Ormond,
book 6 (volume 4)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688.
The reign of James II.
Domination of Tyrconnel and the Catholics.

"At the accession of James II., in 1685, he found the native
Irish, all of whom were Roman Catholics, opposed to the
English rule, as to that of a conquering minority. … Of the
settlers, the Scotch Presbyterians shared the feelings of
their brethren in their native country, and hated
Episcopalians with the true religious fury. In the Irish
Parliament the Presbyterians and Episcopalians were nearly
balanced, whilst the Protestant Nonconformists, in numbers
almost equalling the other two parties, had but few seats in
the Parliament. The Episcopalians alone were hearty supporters
of the house of Stuart; the Presbyterians and Nonconformists
were Whigs. James was in a most favourable position for
tranquilising Ireland, for, as a Roman Catholic, he was much
more acceptable to the native Irish than his predecessors had
been.
{1771}
Had he followed his true interests, he would have endeavoured,
firstly, to unite together, as firmly as possible, the English
settlers in Ireland, and secondly, by wise acts of mediation,
to bridge over the differences between the English and Irish.
Thus he might have welded them into one people. James,
however, followed a directly opposite policy, and the results
of this misgovernment of Ireland are visible at the present
day. The Duke of Ormond was at the time of the death of
Charles II. both lord lieutenant and commander of the forces.
… Soon after his accession James recalled him, and the
office of lord lieutenant was bestowed on his own
brother-in-law, Lord Clarendon, whilst the post of general of
the troops was given to Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel.
Talbot … was a coarse, vulgar, truculent ruffian, greedy and
unprincipled; but in the eyes of James he had great virtues,
for he was devoted to the Romish Church and to his sovereign.
'Lying Dick Talbot,' as he was called, was raised by James to
the peerage as Earl of Tyrconnel. Lord Clarendon was, from the
time of his appointment, hampered by his associate," who,
finally, in 1687, supplanted him, gathering the reins of
government into his own hands, "not indeed as lord lieutenant,
but with the power which Ormond had formerly held, although
under a new title, that of lord deputy. The rule of Tyrconnel
entirely subverted the old order of things. Protestants were
disarmed and Protestant soldiers were disbanded. The militia
was composed wholly of Roman Catholics. The dispensing power
in the royal prerogative set aside the statutes of the
kingdom, and the bench and privy council were occupied by
Roman Catholics. Vacant bishoprics of the Established Church
remained unfilled, and their revenues were devoted to Romish
priests. Tithes were with impunity withheld from the clergy of
the Establishment. … The hatred of the Irish Roman Catholics
towards the Protestant settlers was excited to the utmost
under Tyrconnel's rule. The former now hoped to mete out to
the latter a full measure of retaliation. The breach was
widened owing to the fear and distrust openly showed by the
Protestants, and has never since been effectually repaired."
Before the occurrence of the Revolution which drove James from
his throne, in 1688, "Tyrconnel had disarmed all the
Protestants, except those in the North. He had a large force
of 20,000 men under arms, and of this force all the officers
were trustworthy and Papists. He had filled the corporations
of the towns with adherents of James. He had shown himself to
be, as ever, tyrannical and unscrupulous. It was universally
believed by the Protestants that a general massacre, a second
St. Bartholomew, was intended. Even a day, December 9, was,
they thought, fixed for the expected outbreak. The garrison of
Londonderry had been temporarily withdrawn. On December 8,
Lord Antrim arrived in command of 12,000 [1,200?] soldiers to
form the new garrison. Without any warning, the Protestant
apprentices ('the prentice boys of Derry') shut the gates of
the city in his face. The inhabitants, in spite of the
entreaties of the bishop and of the town council, refused to
allow them to be opened. Antrim was compelled to withdraw.
Thus one rallying-point was gained for the opponents of James.
Another was found in Enniskillen, sixty miles south of
Londonderry. Into these two towns poured all the Protestants
from the surrounding districts. With these two exceptions, the
boast of Tyrconnel that Ireland was true, was well founded."

_E. Hale,
The Fall of the Stuarts,
chapters 10 and 13._

"He [James II.] deliberately resolved, not merely to give to
the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland the entire dominion of
their own country, but also to use them as his instruments for
setting up arbitrary government in England. The event was such
as might have been foreseen. The colonists turned to bay with
the stubborn hardihood of their race. The mother country
justly regarded their cause as her own. Then came a desperate
struggle for a tremendous stake. … The contest was terrible
but short. The weaker went down. His fate was cruel; and yet
for the cruelty with which he was treated there was, not
indeed a defence, but an excuse: for though he suffered all
that tyranny could inflict, he suffered nothing that he would
not himself have inflicted. The effect of the insane attempt
to subjugate England by means of Ireland was that the Irish
became hewers of wood and drawers of water to the English. …
The momentary ascendency of Popery produced such a series of
barbarous laws against Popery as made the statute book of
Ireland a proverb of infamy throughout Christendom. Such were
the bitter fruits of the policy of James."

_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 6 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_J. R. O'Flanagan,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland,
chapter 28 (volume 1)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1688-1689.
Enniskillen and the Battle of Newton Butler.

Enniskillen, then a village, surrounding an ancient castle,
was, in 1688-89, one of the two rallying points of the
Protestant colonists in Ireland, who supported the Revolution
by which James II. was dethroned and William and Mary were
crowned. The chief stronghold of their cause was Londonderry;
but Enniskillen bore a scarcely less important part. "In
December, 1688, Tyrconnel's troops, being two companies of
Popish infantry, advanced upon Enniskillen. The inhabitants,
reinforced by 200 foot and 150 horse, contributed by the
neighbouring gentry, marched out to oppose them. Tyrconnel's
men fled to Cavan. The Enniskilleners, then, arming themselves
as well as they could, and converting all the country-houses
round Lough Erne into garrisons, appointed Gustavus Hamilton
their governor and resolved upon defence. … Early in May,
1689, the Enniskilleners routed Tyrconnel's troops, sent from
Connaught into Donegal. They next drove 1,500 men out of the
County Cavan—destroyed the Castle of Ballincarrig—and then
entered the County Meath, whence they carried off oxen and
sheep. Colonel Hugh Sutherland was sent with a regiment of
dragoons and two regiments of foot against the Enniskilleners,
who, however, defeated them, and took Belturbet, where they
found muskets, gunpowder, and provisions; but unfortunately
they were unable to relieve Derry, then beleaguered and sorely
distressed. The Enniskilleners held out against all attacks,
and refused all terms of surrender. They were now assailed
from various points; by Macarthy (then by James created
Viscount Mountcashel) from the east, by another body from the
west, and by the Duke of Berwick from the north.
{1772}
The Enniskilleners sent to Colonel Kirke [commanding the
English forces first sent to Ireland by William of Orange] who
had arrived in Lough Foyle, and received from him some arms
and ammunition; and Colonel Wolseley and Lieutenant-Colonel
Berry came from him to their assistance. Colonel Wolseley took
the command." Under Wolseley, the men of Enniskillen, 3,000
strong, encountered 5,000 of the enemy, under Mountcashel,
near the town of Newton Butler, on the 31st of July, three
days after Derry had been relieved. Their victory was
complete. "The whole Irish force was totally and hopelessly
routed. Their slaughter was dreadful—l,500 killed, and 500
drowned in Lough Erne, whither they were driven. Mountcashel
was wounded and taken prisoner. The Enniskilleners lost only
twenty killed and fifty wounded. They took 400 prisoners, some
cannons, fourteen barrels of gunpowder, and all the colours
and drums. … The victory became known at Strabane to the
Irish army retreating from Derry, which thereupon broke up in
confusion and fled to Omagh, and thence to Charlemont."

_W. H. Torriano,
William the Third,
chapter 21._

ALSO IN:
_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 12 (volume 3)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.
The War of the Revolution.
The Orange conquest.

Supported by a French fleet, supplied moderately with French
gold, and accompanied by a picked body of French officers, for
the organizing and disciplining of raw Irish troops, James II.
landed in Ireland, at Kinsale, on the 12th of March, 1689, to
take personal possession of the government still maintained
there in his name. From Kinsale he hastened to Dublin, "and
summoned a Parliament, which met on May 7, 1689, and sat until
July 18. This Parliament of James has been described as a
Parliament of Irish Celts, yet out of the 228 members of the
House of Commons about one-fourth only belonged to the native
race, and even including members of families Anglicized or of
doubtful origin, not one-third of the House of Commons
belonged to the so-called Celts. Of the thirty-two lay peers
who attended, not more than two or three bore old Irish names.
The four spiritual peers were Protestant bishops."

_W. K. Sullivan,
part 1, of Two Centuries of Irish History
chapter 1._

"The members of the House of Commons were almost all new men,
completely inexperienced in public business and animated by
the resentment of the bitterest wrongs. Many of them were sons
of some of the 3,000 proprietors who without trial and without
compensation had been deprived by the Act of Settlement of the
estates of their ancestors. To all of them the confiscations
of Ulster, the fraud of Strafford, the long train of
calamities that followed were recent and vivid events. … It
will hardly appear surprising to candid men that a Parliament
so constituted and called together amid the excitement of a
civil war, should have displayed much violence, much disregard
for vested interests. Its measures, indeed, were not all
criminal. By one Act which was far in advance of the age, it
established perfect religious liberty in Ireland. … By
another Act, repealing Poynings' law, and asserting its own
legislative independence, it anticipated the doctrine of
Molyneux, Swift, and Grattan. … A third measure abolished
the payments to Protestant clergy in the corporate towns,
while a fourth ordered that the Catholics throughout Ireland
should henceforth pay their tithes and other ecclesiastical
dues to their own priests and not to the Protestant clergy.
The Protestants were still to pay their tithes to their own
clergy. … Several other measures—most of them now only
known by their titles—were passed for developing the
resources of the country or remedying some great abuse. … If
these had been the only measures of the Irish Parliament it
would have left an eminently honourable reputation. But,
unfortunately, one of its main objects was to re-establish at
all costs the descendants of the old proprietors in their
land, and to annul by measures of sweeping violence the
grievous wrongs and spoliations their fathers and their
grandfathers had undergone. The first and most important
measure with this object was the repeal of the Acts of
Settlement and Explanation. … The preamble asserts that the
outbreak of 1641 had been solely due to the intolerable
oppression and to the disloyal conduct of the Lords Justices
and Puritan party, that the Catholics of Ireland before the
struggle had concluded had been fully reconciled to the
sovereign, that they had received from the sovereign a full
and formal pardon, and that the royal word had been in
consequence pledged to the restitution of their properties.
This pledge by the Act of Settlement had been to a great
extent broken, and the Irish legislators maintained that the
twenty-four years which had elapsed since that Act had not
annulled the rights of the old proprietors or their
descendants. They maintained that these claims were not only
valid but were prior to all others, and they accordingly
enacted that the heirs of all persons who had possessed landed
property in Ireland on October 22, 1641, and who had been
deprived of their inheritance by the Act of Settlement, should
enter at once into possession of their old properties. … The
long succession of confiscations of Irish land which had taken
place from the days of Mary to the Act of Settlement had been
mainly based upon real or pretended plots of the owners of the
soil, which enabled the Government, on the plea of high
treason, to appropriate the land which they desired. In 1689
the great bulk of the English proprietors of Irish soil were
in actual correspondence with William, and were therefore
legally guilty of high treason. The Irish legislators now
proceeded to follow the example of the British Governments,
and by a clause of extreme severity they pronounced the real
estates of all Irish proprietors who dwelt in any part of the
three kingdoms which did not acknowledge King James, or who
aided, abetted or corresponded with the rebels, to be
forfeited and vested in the Crown, and from this source they
proposed to compensate the purchasers under the Act of
Settlement. … The measure of repeal, however, was speedily
followed by another Act of much more sweeping and violent
injustice. The Act of Attainder, which was introduced in the
latter part of June, aimed at nothing less than a complete
overthrow of the existing land system in Ireland. A list
divided into several groups, but containing in all more than
2,000 names, was drawn up of landowners who were to be
attainted of high treason. …
{1773}
Few persons will question the tyranny of an Act which in this
manner made a very large proportion of the Irish landlords
liable to the penalties of high treason, unless they could
prove their innocence, even though the only crime that could
be alleged against them was that of living out of Ireland in a
time of civil war. … It is … a curious illustration of the
carelessness or partiality with which Irish history is
written, that no popular historian has noticed that five days
before this Act, which has been described as 'without a
parallel in the history of civilised countries,' was
introduced into the Irish Parliament, a Bill which appears, in
its essential characteristics, to have been precisely similar
was introduced into the Parliament of England; that it passed
the English House of Commons; that it passed, with slight
amendments, the English House of Lords; and that it was only
lost, in its last stage, by a prorogation. … These facts
will show how far the Irish Act of Attainder was from having
the unique character that has been ascribed to it. It is not
possible to say how that Act would have been executed, for the
days of Jacobite ascendency were now few and evil. The
Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of July, one of its last
Acts being to vest in the King the property of those who were
still absentees."

_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 6 (volume 2)._