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 IRELAND

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IRELAND

these relations with him even after he had treacher- ously surrendered Dublin to the Parliament (1647), and left the country. On the contrary, they still put faith in him, entered into a fresh peace with him in 1648, and when he returned to Ireland as the Royalist viceroy they received him in state at Kilkenny. In disgust, General O'Neill came to a temporary agree- ment with the Parliamentary general, and Rinuccini, despairing of Ireland, returned to Rome.

The Civil War in England was then over. The Roy- alists had been vanquished, the king executed, the monarchy replaced by a commonwealth; and in Au- gust, 1649, Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland with 10,000 men. Ormond meanwhile had rallied his sup- porters, and, with the greater part of the Catholics of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, the Protestants of the Pale and of Munster, and great part of the Ulster Presbyterians, his strength was considerable. His obstinate bigotry would not allow him to make terms with the Ulster army, and he thus lost the support of General O'Neill at a critical time. Early in August he had been disastrously beaten by the Puritan general Jones, at Rathmines; in consequence he offered no opposition to Cromwell's landing and made no attempt to relieve Drogheda. It was soon captured by Crom- well and its garrison put to the sword. A month later the same fate befell Wexford. Waterford repelled Cromwell's attack, and Clonmel and Kilkenny offered him a stout resistance; but other towns were easily captured, or voluntarily surrendered; and when he left Ireland, in May, 1650, Munster and Leinster were in his hands. His successors, Ireton and Ludlow, within two years reduced the remaining provinces. Meanwhile Owen Roe O'Neill had died after making terms with Ormond, but before meeting with Crom- well. The Catholic Bishops, however, repudiated Or- mond, who then left Ireland. Some negotiation sub- sequently between Lord Clanricarde and the Duke of Lorraine came to nothing, and the long war was ended in which more than half the inhabitants of the country had lost their lives.

In the beginning of the rebellion many Englishmen subscribed money to put it down, stipulating in re- turn for a share of the lands to be forfeited, and thus hatred of the Catholics was mingled with hope of gain. The English Parliament acceptetl the money on the terms proposed, and the subscribers became known as "adventurers", because they adventured their money on Irish land. When the rebellion was over, the problem was to provide the lands promised, and also to provide lands for the soldiers who were in ar- rears of pay. It was a difficult problem. There was an Act for Settling Ireland, and an Act for the Satis- faction of Adventurers in Lands and Arrears due to the soldiers and other pubhc Debts; there was a High Court of Justice to determine who were guilty of re- bellion; there were soldiers who had got special terms when laying down their arms; and there were those who had never had a share in the rebellion, liut had merely lived in the rebel quarters during the war. The best of the lands east of the Shannon were for the adventurers and soldiers, the dispossessed being driven to Connaught. To determine where the planters were to be settled and where the transplanted, and what amount they were to get, there wore conunissions, and committees, and surveys, and court nf olaim.s. Nor was it till 1658 that the Cromwelliaii Settlement was complete, and even then many of the transplanted protested their innocence of any share in the rebellion, and many of the adventurers :md soldiers complained that they had been defrauded <if their due. In the amount of suffering it entailed and wrung iuHiclcd tlie whole scheme far exceeded the |)lantation of Ulster. But it failed to make Ireland either English or Prot- estant, and in setting up a system of alien huidlords and native tenants it proved the curse of Ireland and the fruitful parent of many ills.

To the Irish Cromwell's death in 1658 was welcome news, all the more so because Charles II (1660-85) was restored. For their attachment to the cause of the latter they had suffered much ; and now the Cath- olic landlord in his Connaught cabin and the Irish soldier abroad felt equally assured that the recovery of their lands and homes was at hand. They soon learned that Stuart gratitude meant little and that Stuart promises were written on sand. Had Charles been free to act, the Cromwellian Settlement would not have endured; for he loved the Catholics much more than he loved the Puritans. But the planters were a dangerous body to provoke, sustainetl as they were by the English Parliament and by the king's chief adviser, Ormond, who indeed hated the Crom- wellians, but hated the Cathohcs much more. Some attempt, however, was made to right the wrong that had been done, and by the Act of Settlement six hundred innocent Catholics were restored to their lands. Many more would have been restored had the court of claims been allowed to continue its sittings. The irate planters wanted to know what was to become of them if the despoiled papists thus got back their lands; utterings threats and even breaking out into rebellion they alarmed the king. Under Ormond 's advice the Act of Explanation was then passed (1665) and the court of claims set up by the Act of Settlement closed its doors, though three thousand cases remained un- tried. Thus the Cromwellians who had murdered the king's father were, with few exceptions, left unmo- lested while the Catholics were abandoned to their fate. Before the rebellion two-thirds of the lands of the country were in the hands of the latter; after the Act of Explanation scarcely one-third was left them, a sweeping confiscation especially in the case of men who were denied even the justice of a trial. After this the toleration of the Catholics was but a small concession. Not, however, during the whole of Charles's reign; for Ormond, now a duke, filled the ofKce of viceroy for many years; he at least would maintain Protestant ascendancy, and exclude the Catholics from the bench and the corporations. In the English Council and in Parliament he bitterly attacked and defeated the pro- posed revision of the Act of Settlement. He does not appear to have had any sj-mpathy with the lying tales of Gates and Bedloe, or with the storm of persecution which followed, and he disapproved of the judicial murder of Oliver Plunket. But his aversion from the Catholics continued, and was in no way chilled by ad- vancing age. One of the last acts of Charles was to dismiss him from office as an enemy to toleration. The king himself soon after died in the Catholic Faith, and James II, an avowed Catholic, succeeded, the first Catholic sovereign since the death of Mary Tutior.

Religious toleration had then made little progress throughout Europe, and England, aggressively Prot- estant, looked with special disfavour on Catholicism. In these circumstances James II should have moved with caution. He should have taken account of na- tional prejudices and the temper of the times, and re- spected established institutions; while conscientiously practising his own religion, he should have sought for no favour for it, at least until the nation was in a more tolerant and yielding mood. Instead of this, and in defiance of iMiglish bigotry and English law, he ap- pointed Calluilics to high civil and niilif;iry offices, opened llic ocirporalicins and the universities In them, had a iiap.il nuncin at liis court, anil issueil a Declara- tion of Indulgence suspending llic penal laws. When the Protestant bishdps refused to have this declaration read from tlu'lr pulpits he jiroseeutcd them. Their acquittal was the signal fur revolt, and ,I:imes, de- serted by all classes, fleil to France leaving the English throne to William of Orange, whom the Protestants invited from Holland. Meanwhile sweejiing changes had been effected in Ireland by the viceroy, the Duke of Tyrconnell, a militant Catholic and a special favour-