The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3. Томас Бабингтон Маколей
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communication with one another. As the season for military operations approached, the solemn appeals of injured nations to the God of battles came forth in rapid succession. The manifesto of the Germanic body appeared in February; that of the States General in March; that of the House of Brandenburg in April; and that of Spain in May, 109
Here, as soon as the ceremony of the coronation was over, the House of Commons determined to take into consideration the late proceedings of the French king, 110 In the debate, that hatred of the powerful, unscrupulous and imperious Lewis, which had, during twenty years of vassalage, festered in the hearts of Englishmen, broke violently forth. He was called the most Christian Turk, the most Christian ravager of Christendom, the most Christian barbarian who had perpetrated on Christians outrages of which his infidel allies would have been ashamed, 111 A committee, consisting chiefly of ardent Whigs, was appointed to prepare an address. John Hampden, the most ardent Whig among them, was put into the chair; and he produced a composition too long, too rhetorical, and too vituperative to suit the lips of the Speaker or the ears of the King. Invectives against Lewis might perhaps, in the temper in which the House then was, have passed without censure, if they had not been accompanied by severe reflections on the character and administration of Charles the Second, whose memory, in spite of all his faults, was affectionately cherished by the Tories. There were some very intelligible allusions to Charles's dealings with the Court of Versailles, and to the foreign woman whom that Court had sent to lie like a snake in his bosom. The House was with good reason dissatisfied. The address was recommitted, and, having been made more concise, and less declamatory and acrimonious, was approved and presented, 112 William's attention was called to the wrongs which France had done to him and to his kingdom; and he was assured that, whenever he should resort to arms for the redress of those wrongs, he should be heartily supported by his people. He thanked the Commons warmly. Ambition, he said, should never induce him to draw the sword: but he had no choice: France had already attacked England; and it was necessary to exercise the right of selfdefence. A few days later war was proclaimed, 113
Of the grounds of quarrel alleged by the Commons in their address, and by the King in his manifesto, the most serious was the interference of Lewis in the affairs of Ireland. In that country great events had, during several months, followed one another in rapid succession. Of those events it is now time to relate the history, a history dark with crime and sorrow, yet full of interest and instruction.
CHAPTER XII
State of Ireland at the Time of the Revolution; the Civil Power in the Hands of the Roman Catholics—The Military Power in the Hands of the Roman Catholics—Mutual Enmity between the Englishry and Irishry—Panic among the Englishry—History of the Town of Kenmare—Enniskillen—Londonderry—Closing of the Gates of Londonderry—Mountjoy sent to pacify Ulster—William opens a Negotiation with Tyrconnel—The Temples consulted—Richard Hamilton sent to Ireland on his Parole—Tyrconnel sends Mountjoy and Rice to France—Tyrconnel calls the Irish People to Arms—Devastation of the Country—The Protestants in the South unable to resist—Enniskillen and Londonderry hold out; Richard Hamilton marches into Ulster with an Army—James determines to go to Ireland—Assistance furnished by Lewis to James—Choice of a French Ambassador to accompany James—The Count of Avaux—James lands at Kinsale—James enters Cork—Journey of James from Cork to Dublin—Discontent in England—Factions at Dublin Castle—James determines to go to Ulster—Journey of James to Ulster—The Fall of Londonderry expected—Succours arrive from England—Treachery of Lundy; the Inhabitants of Londonderry resolve to defend themselves—Their Character—Londonderry besieged—The Siege turned into a Blockade—Naval Skirmish in Bantry Bay—A Parliament summoned by James sits at Dublin—A Toleration Act passed; Acts passed for the Confiscation of the Property of Protestants—Issue of base Money—The great Act of Attainder—James prorogues his Parliament; Persecution of the Protestants in Ireland—Effect produced in England by the News from Ireland—Actions of the Enniskilleners—Distress of Londonderry—Expedition under Kirke arrives in Loch Foyle—Cruelty of Rosen—The Famine in Londonderry extreme—Attack on the Boom—The Siege of Londonderry raised—Operations against the Enniskilleners—Battle of Newton Butler—Consternation of the Irish
WILLIAM had assumed, together with the title of King of England, the title of King of Ireland. For all our jurists then regarded Ireland as a mere colony, more important indeed than Massachusetts, Virginia, or Jamaica, but, like Massachusetts, Virginia, and Jamaica, dependent on the mother country, and bound to pay allegiance to the Sovereign whom the mother country had called to the throne, 114
In fact, however, the Revolution found Ireland emancipated from the dominion of the English colony. As early as the year 1686, James had determined to make that island a place of arms which might overawe Great Britain, and a place of refuge where, if any disaster happened in Great Britain, the members of his Church might find refuge. With this view he had exerted all his power for the purpose of inverting the relation between the conquerors and the aboriginal population. The execution of his design he had intrusted, in spite of the remonstrances of his English counsellors, to the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel. In the autumn of 1688, the process was complete. The highest offices in the state, in the army, and in the Courts of justice, were, with scarcely an exception, filled by Papists. A pettifogger named Alexander Fitton, who had been detected in forgery, who had been fined for misconduct by the House of Lords at Westminster, who had been many years in prison, and who was equally deficient in legal knowledge and in the natural good sense and acuteness by which the want of legal knowledge has sometimes been supplied, was Lord Chancellor. His single merit was that he had apostatized from the Protestant religion; and this merit was thought sufficient to wash out even the stain of his Saxon extraction. He soon proved himself worthy of the confidence of his patrons. On the bench of justice he declared that there was not one heretic in forty thousand who was not a villain. He often, after hearing a cause in which the interests of his Church were concerned, postponed his decision, for the purpose, as he avowed, of consulting his spiritual director, a Spanish priest, well read doubtless in Escobar, 115 Thomas Nugent, a Roman Catholic who had never distinguished himself at the bar except by his brogue and his blunders, was Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 116 Stephen Rice, a Roman Catholic, whose abilities and learning were not disputed even by the enemies of his nation and religion, but whose known hostility to the Act of Settlement excited the most painful apprehensions in the minds of all who held property under that Act, was Chief Baron of the Exchequer, 117 Richard Nagle, an acute and well read lawyer, who had been educated in a Jesuit college, and whose prejudices were such as might have been expected from his education, was Attorney General, 118
Keating, a highly respectable Protestant, was still Chief Justice of the Common Pleas: but two Roman Catholic judges sate with him. It ought to be added that one of those judges, Daly, was a man of sense, moderation and integrity. The matters however which came before the Court of Common Pleas were not of great moment. Even the King's Bench was at this time almost deserted. The Court of Exchequer overflowed with business; for it was the only court at Dublin from which no writ of error lay to England, and consequently the only court in which the English could be oppressed and pillaged without hope of redress. Rice, it was said, had declared that they should have from him exactly what the law, construed with the utmost strictness, gave them, and nothing more. What, in his opinion, the law, strictly construed, gave them, they could easily infer from a saying which, before he became a judge, was often in his mouth. "I will drive," he used to say, "a coach and six through the Act of Settlement." He now carried his threat daily into execution. The cry of all Protestants was that it mattered not what evidence they produced before him; that, when their titles were to be set aside, the rankest forgeries, the most infamous witnesses, were sure to have his countenance. To his court his countrymen