Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/84

70 subjected to fines, excommunications, and punishments, which diffused poverty and misery over the whole island.

The lord-deputy prorogued the impracticable assembly, and both parties appealed to the king. The catholics sent as deputies the lords Gormausbury and Dunboyne, and two knights and two barristers to plead their cause. The expense of the mission was defrayed by a general collection, which was made in spite of a severe proclamation against it. James received them at first graciously, but his anger soon broke out when he found them impervious to his controversial eloquence; and, as usual, he threw two of them into prison—Luttrel into the Fleet, and Talbot into the Tower. He soon had Talbot before the star-chamber, and strictly interrogated him on the point of loyalty to the crown, and he severely reprimanded the whole deputation on the same ground; but lord Delvin on his knees declared that he would ever be faithful to the king as his rightful liege, yet that nothing should ever induce him to abandon his religion. James dismissed them, after having appointed a commission of inquiry regarding the representatives of the new Irish boroughs, which decided that none of those four boroughs incorporated after the writs were issued, had a right to sit that session.

As to the religious grievances, no concession was made, and scarcely had the deputies reached home, when a proclamation appeared, ordering all the catholic clergy to quit Ireland on pain of death. When parliament met again, in 1615, there was an outward air of conciliation; the two parties avoided the grand subjects of discord, except that both houses joined in a petition that catholic barristers might be permitted to plead. The attainders of Tyrone, Tyrconnel, and O'Dogherty were confirmed, as well as the plantation of Lister, and all distinctions betwixt the two races of the Irish, that is, the native Irish and the Anglo-Irish, were abolished by statute, and a liberal subsidy was obtained.

We have now brought up the affairs of Ireland to the date of those of England, but to prevent the necessity of recurring to them again during the reign of James, we win proceed with the few additional facts which marked the period.

The conciliatory air did not long continue. The lord-deputy Chichester made a cautions attempt to enforce the fines for absence from church, beginning with a few timid persons in each county, who, by conceding, might influence others. In 1623 lord Falkland, then lord-deputy, repeated the proclamation, ordering all catholic priests to quit the kingdom on pain of death; but they only retired into the mountains and morasses, and defied his authority. James saw that it was useless to hope for success in his scheme of crushing out Catholicism, till he had planted the whole island after the Ulster fashion, and this was set about in good earnest. Commissions were issued for the examination of all grants and titles, and by the most iniquitous proceedings, scarcely a single foot of land was left unexempted from the claim of forfeiture to the crown. It was found that the proprietors of the vast counties of Connaught, Galway, and Clare, had been induced to surrender their titles to Elizabeth, on condition that they should receive fresh ones, and that they had paid three thousand pounds for the enrollment of these titles, but had never got them. On this discovery James was advised to claim the whole island, with the exception of the small portion which he had himself planted; but the owners declared on all hands, that they would defend their lands with their swords rather than admit such a claim; and James, who was no hero, preferred getting a sum of money. His pretensions were commuted for a double annual rent, and a fine of ten thousand pounds. He, however, went on and planted the coast betwixt Dublin and Wexford, then the counties of Leitrim and Longford, and finally those of Westmeath, and King's and Queen's counties. In this procedure all law and justice were set aside. James gave orders that three-fourths of the lands should be settled on the original proprietors, but no regard was paid to this. Few of the old possessors obtained above a quarter of their lands again, and many were stripped of every acre which they had inherited from their fathers. Whole septs were removed to the parts most distant from their native localities. Seven such septs were transported from Queen's county to King's, and menaced with instant death by martial law if they dared return. Sir Patrick Crosby received the seigniory of Tarbert, on condition that he leased out one-fourth of it to those unhappy exiles, but very few of them got anything; and, in a word, Carte declares that the injustice and cruelty then committed, are scarcely to be paralleled in the history of any age or country.

Such was the condition of Ireland as left by James. He imagined that he had pacified it; it was only the sullen lull before the storm, which bluest forth in the days of his successor with a fury only the more terrible from its temporary suppression.

During the king's absence in Scotland, lord Bacon had shown such arrogance in the council, that he had disgusted everybody. He had appeared to imagine himself king, took up his quartet's in Whitehall, and gave audiences in the great banqueting house at Whitehall. Mr. Secretary Winwood was so incensed at his presumption, that he quitted the council-chamber, declaring that he would not enter it again till the king's return; and he wrote at once an account of Bacon's proceedings, assuring the king that it was high time that he returned, for his throne was already occupied. The vain, foolish conduct of the lord-keeper was watched by an eye which owed him no favour, and a spirit smarting with envy, which was relentless in its revenge. Coke, by offending the favourite, lost his position, but he now saw a way to turn this opposition to Buckingham against Bacon. Buckingham, since his rising into favour, had taken care to promote the fortunes of his friends and relatives. He had cast his eyes on the daughter of the fallen chief-justice Coke, by lady Hatton, the widow of queen Elizabeth's dancing chancellor, who was likely to have a large fortune from her mother, and he determined to obtain her for his brother, John Villers, a sickly and nearly idiotic youth. Coke, who despised the favourite, and was at feud with him respecting the already mentioned patents of office, opposed the match, which was neither agreeable to the young lady nor her mother. But when Coke found himself deprived of his office, and his insulting rival. Bacon, advanced, he bethought himself that by the means of his daughter, he had the power of regaining the good-win of the favourite, and pulling down the arrogant lord-keeper. Before Buckingham had left for