Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/21

Cromwell in Ireland told for twenty years that the King had robbed them, enslaved them, emparked them off the land, stolen the commons from them, raised money without their consent (fancy consent of smock-frocked Hodge in Surrey, or of that other shivering being in Billingsgate!). They had been told, too, that if they upset the King and drove out his people all would be well with them; the Saints would possess the earth— which meant, so far as Hodge was concerned, a promise of better ale and cheaper cake all round. And now the King was dead; thousands of them had seen him die, and indeed had groaned heart and soul at the sight; but ale was as thin and cakes as dear, nay dearer, than they had ever been. Their declarations are pitiable reading, if we had time to dwell upon them. In April, 1649, they assemble in Surrey and begin to dig some waste spots of ground, and sow therein roots and beans. "The liberties of the people," they say, "were lost by the coming in of William the Conqueror, and ever since that day they, the people of God, have lived under tyranny and oppression wrose than that of the Israelites under the Egyptians. Now the time of deliverance is at hand. They intend not to meddle with any man's property, nor break down any pales or enclosures, but only to till what is wild and 9