Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry Part 2

Viscount Iveagh held Drogheda at the battle of the Boyne, and was induced to surrender it by William's ruffianly and unmilitary threat of "no quarter."

Lord Clare was father to the famous Lord Clare, whose regiment was the glory of the Irish Brigade, and who was killed at Ramillies in 1706. He was descended from Connor O'Brian, third earl of Th.o.m.ond.

Lord Mountcashel, by his rapidity and skill, completely broke the Munster insurgents, and made that province, till then considered the stronghold of the English, James's best help. To him was intrusted the Bill repealing the Settlement in the Commons, where he sat as member for the county of Cork till that Bill pa.s.sed the Commons, when he was called to the Upper House as Lord Mountcashel.

Lord Kinsale represented the famous John De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, and had the blood of Charlemagne in his veins. He served as Lieutenant-Colonel to Lord Lucan. His attainder under William was reversed, and he appeared at court, where he enforced the privilege peculiar to his family of remaining covered in the king's presence.

--------------------------------------------------------------- [17] See as to this, Melfort's letter to Pottinger, the sovereign of Belfast; "History of Belfast," pp. 72-3; Lesley _proves_, on Williamite authority, that the Protestants were worse treated by William's army than by James's. See Dr. Gorges in Lesley's Appendix.

[18] He was appointed in 1686 (see Appendix B). T. W. R.

[19] In July, 1691, William had offered these terms: 1st. The free public exercise of the Roman Catholic Religion. 2nd. Half the churches in the kingdom. 3rd. Half the employments, civil and military, if they pleased. 4th. Half their properties, as held prior to Cromwell's conquest. The terms were at once refused. The suppressed proclamation doubtless offered at least as much.

(Harris's "William," and Plowden, b. 2.)

[20] Rawdon Papers, p. 253.

[21] Anthony Hamilton, in his "Memoirs of Grammont," exaggerates this to 40,000 a year, and attributes Miss Jennings' affection to its attractions. But besides that, by his statement, Tyrconnell had been a rival of Grammont with Miss Hamilton, there is enough in Grammont to account for it otherwise. Hamilton, an Irishman, and a Jacobite, seems to have sympathised with Tyrconnell. He describes him as "one of the largest and most powerful looking men in England," "with a brilliant and handsome appearance, and something of n.o.bility, not to say haughtiness in his manners." He mentions circ.u.mstances, showing him bold, free, amorous, and, strange for a courtier, punctual in payment of debts. Yet this man, so full of refinement, and so trained, is described by King as addressing the Irish Privy Council thus:--"I have put the sword into your hands, and G.o.d d.a.m.n you all if ever you part with it."

[22] Clarendon's "State Letters," vol. i. and the Diary.

[23] Hallam's "Const.i.tutional History," v. iii., p. 530.

[24] State Tracts, Will. III.'s reign, H. R.'s App. to c.o.x.

[25] "Memoirs of James II.," by the Rev. ---- Clarke, Chaplain to George IV. These memoirs seem to have been copies of memoirs written under James II.'s inspection, and deposited in the Scotch College in Paris. The originals perished at the French Revolution, and their copies came to Rome, from whence they were procured for the English government in 1805. See Mr. Clarke's preface, and Guizot's preface to his translation of them in the "Memoires de la Revolution."

CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

The number of members in the Commons, as the complement was made up under the monstrous charters of James I., Charles I., and Charles II., far outdoing in their unconst.i.tutional nature any of the stretchings of prerogative in the reign of James II., amounted to 300. The number actually returned was 224. Of the deficiencies, no less than 28 were caused by the places being the seats of the war.

The character of this a.s.sembly must be chiefly judged by its acts, and we shall presently resume the consideration of them; but there are some things in the composition of the Commons whereby their character has been judged.

They have been denounced by King: but before we examine his statements, let us inquire who he was, lest we underrate or overrate his testimony; lest we unjustly require proof, in addition to the witness of a thoroughly pure and wise man; or, what is more dangerous, lest we remain content with the unconfirmed statements of a bigot or knave.

William King was the son of James King, a miller, who, in order to avoid taking the Solemn League and Covenant, removed from the North of Scotland, and settled in Antrim, where William was born, 1st of May, 1650. (See Harris's "Ware," Bishops of Derry.) He was educated at Dungannon, was a sizar, "_native_," and schoolmaster in T.C.D., and was ordained in 1673. Parker, archbishop of Tuam, gave him a heap of livings, and on being translated to Dublin, procured the Chancellors.h.i.+p of St. Patrick's for King in 1679. This he held during the Revolution.

He was imprisoned in 1689 on suspicion, but after some months was released, through the influence of Herbert and Tyrconnell, and notwithstanding C. J. Nugent's opposition. Immediately on his release he wrote his "State of the Protestants of Ireland," printed in London, _c.u.m privilegio_, at the chief Williamite printer's. It was written and published while the war in Ireland was at its height, and when it was sought at any price to check the Jacobite feeling then beginning to revive in England, by running down the conduct of the Irish, James's most formidable supporters. Moreover, King had been imprisoned (justly or unjustly) by James's council, and he obtained the bishopric of Derry from William, on the 25th of January, 1690 (old style), namely, within thirty-eight weeks before the publication of his book, which was printed, _c.u.m privilegio_, 15th of October, 1691. Whether the bishopric was the wages of the book, or the book revenge for the imprisonment, we shall not say; but surely King must have had marvellous virtue to write impartially, in excited and reckless times, for so demoralized a party as the English Whigs, when he wrote of transactions yet incomplete, of which there was a perilous stake not only for him but for his friends, and when, of the parties at issue, one gave him a gaol and the other a mitre.

There is scarcely a section in his book that does not abound with the most superlative charges, put in the coa.r.s.est language. All the calumnies as to 1641, which are now confessed to be false, are gospel truths in his book. He never gives an exact authority for any of his graver charges, and his appendix is a valuable reply to his text.

When, in addition to these external probabilites and intrinsic evidences of falsehood, we add that, immediately on its publication, Lesley wrote an answer to it, denying its main statements as mere lies, and that his book was never replied to, we will not be in a hurry to adopt any statement of King's.

But in order to see the force of this last objection to King's credibility, something must be known of Lesley.

Charles Lesley, son of the bishop of Clogher, is chiefly known for his very able controversial writings against Deists, Catholics, and Dissenters. He was a law-student till 1680, when he took orders; and in 1687 became chancellor of Connor. When, in 1688, James appointed a Roman Catholic sheriff for Monaghan, Mr. Lesley, being then sick with gout, had himself carried to the courthouse, and induced the magistrates to commit the sheriff. In fact, it appears from Harris ("Life of William," p. 216, and "Writers of Ireland," pp. 282-6), that Lesley was notorious for his conversions of Roman Catholics, and his stern hostility to Tyrconnell's government. Lesley refused to take the oath of supremacy after the Revolution, and thereby lost all chance of promotion in the Church. He was looked on as the head of the nonjurors, and died in March, 1721-2, at Glaslough, universally respected.

Such being Mr. Lesley's character, so able, so upright, so zealously Protestant, he, in 1692, wrote an answer to King's "State," in which he accuses King of the basest personal hypocrisy and charges him with having in his book written gross, abominable, and notorious falsehoods, and this he _proves_ in several instances, and in many more renders it highly probable. King died 8th May, 1729, leaving Lesley's book altogether unreplied to.

Here then was that man--bishop of Derry for eleven years and archbishop of Dublin for twenty-seven years--remaining silent under a charge of deliberate and interested falsehood, and that charge made by no unworthy man, but by one of his own country, neighbourhood, and creed--by one of acknowledged virtue, high position, and vast abilities.

Nor is this all; Lesley's book was not only unanswered; it was watched and attempted to be stopped, and when published, was instantly ordered to be suppressed, as were all other publications in favour of the Irish or of King James.

The reader is now in a position to judge of the credibility of any a.s.sertion of King's, when unsupported by other authority.

King's gravest charges are in the following pa.s.sage:--

"These members of the House of Commons are elected either by freeholders of counties, or the freemen of the corporations; and I have already showed how king James wrested these out of the hands of Protestants, and put them into Popish hands in the new const.i.tution of corporations, by which the freemen and freeholders of cities or boroughs, to whom the election of burgesses originally belongs, are excluded, and the election put into the hands of a small number of men named by the king, and removable at his pleasure. The Protestant freeholders, if they had been in the kingdom, were much more than the papist freeholders, but now being gone, though many counties could not make a jury, as appeared at the intended trial of Mr. Price and other Protestants at Wicklow, who could not be tried for want of freeholders--yet, notwithstanding the paucity of these, they made a s.h.i.+ft to return knights of the s.h.i.+re. The common way of election was thus:--The Earl of Tyrconnell, together with the writ for election, commonly sent a letter, recommending the persons he designed should be chosen; the sheriff or mayor being his creature, on receipt of this, called so many of the freeholders of a county or burgesses of a corporation together, as he thought fit, and without making any noise, made the return. It was easier to do this in boroughs--because, by their new charters, the electors were not above twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest cities but twenty-four; and commonly, not half of these in the place. The method of the Sheriff's proceeding was the same; the number of Popish freeholders being very small, sometimes not a dozen in a county, it was easier to give notice to them to appear, so that the Protestants either did not know of the election or durst not appear at it."

First let us see about the boroughs. King, in his section on the corporations, states in terms that "they" (the Protestants) "thought it reasonable to keep these (corporate towns) in their own hands, as being the foundation of the legislative power, and therefore secluded papists," etc. The purport, therefore, of King's objection to the new const.i.tution under King James's charters was the admission of Roman Catholics. Religious equality was sinful in his eyes.

The means used by James to change the corporations, namely bringing _quo warrantos_ in the Exchequer against them, and employing all the niceties of a confused law to quash them, we have before condemned. In doing so, he had the precedents of the reigns called most const.i.tutional by English historians, and those not old, but during his brother's reign; nor can anyone who has looked into Brady's treatise on Boroughs doubt that there was plenty of "law" in favour of James's conduct.[26]

But still public policy and public opinion in England were against these _quo warrantos_, and in Ireland they were only approved of by those who were to be benefited by them.

But the means being thus improper, the use made by James of this power can hardly be complained of. The Roman Catholics were then about 900,000, the Protestants, over 300,000. James, it is confessed, allowed one-third of the corporations to be Protestant, though they were little, if at all, more than one-fourth of the population. This will appear no great injustice in our times, although some of these Protestants may, as it has been alleged, have been "Quakers."

It must also be remembered that those proceedings were begun not by James but by Charles; that the corporations were, with some show of law, conceived to have been forfeited during the Irish war, or the Cromwellian rule; and that being offered renewals on terms, they refused; whereupon the _quo warrantos_ were brought and decided before the regular tribunals during the earlier and middle part of James's reign. On the 24th September, 1687, James issued his Royal Letter (to be found in Harris's Appendix, pp. 4 to 6), commanding the renewal of the charters. By these renewals, the first members of the corporations were to be named by the lord lieutenant, but they were afterwards to be elected by the corporations themselves. There certainly are _non-obstante_ and non-resistance clauses ordered to be inserted, in the prerogative spirit of that day, which were justly complained of.

With reference to the number of burgesses, King's statement that the number of electors was usually twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest cities but twenty-four, is untrue. Most of the Irish boroughs were certainly reduced to these numbers under the liberal Hanoverian government, but not so under James. The members' names are given in full in Harris's Appendix, and from those it appears that no corporation had so few as twelve electors. Only five, viz.--Dungannon, Ennis, St. Johnstown (in Longford), Belturbet, and Athboy, were as low as thirteen; twenty-three, viz.--Tuam, Kildare, Cavan, Galway, Callan, Newborough, Carlingford, Gowran, Carysfort, Boyle, Roscommon, Athy, Strabane, Middletown, Newry, Philipstown, Banagher, Castlebar, Fethard, Blessington, Charleville, Thomastown, and Baltimore, varied from fourteen to twenty-four; most of the rest varied from thirty to forty.

Dublin had seventy-three; Cork, sixty-one; Clonmel, forty-six; Cashel, forty-two; Drogheda, fifty-seven; Kilkenny, sixty-one; Limerick, sixty-five; Waterford, forty-nine; Youghal, forty-six; Wexford, fifty-three, and Derry, sixty-four. This is a striking proof of the little reliance to be placed on King's positive statements.

Harris, a hostile authority, gives the names and generally the additions of the members of each corporation, and the majority are merchants, respectable traders, engineers, or gentlemen. Moreover, in such towns as our local knowledge extends to, the names are those of the best families, not being zealous Williamites. As to the counties, King relies upon a pamphlet published in London in 1689, setting out great grievances in the t.i.tle page, and disproving them in the body of the tract.

If many Protestant freeholders had fled to England, who was to blame?--Most a.s.suredly, my Lord Mount Alexander and the rest of the right n.o.ble and honourable suborners, devisers, and propagators of forged letters and infamous reports, whereby they frightened the Protestants, in order to take advantage of their terror for their own selfish ends. The exposure of these devices by the publication of "Speke's Memoirs," by the confessed forgery of the Dromore letter, etc., have thrown the chief blame of the Protestant desertion off the shoulders of those Protestants, off the shoulders, too, of the Irish government, and have brought it crus.h.i.+ngly upon the aristocratic cabal, who alone profited by the revolution, as they alone caused it.

In the absence of other testimony, we must take, with similar allowances, the story of Tyrconnell "_commonly_" sending an unconst.i.tutional letter to influence the election. But how very good these Jacobite sheriffs and mayors were to let King into the secret, in 1691, when their destiny was uncertain! That such gossip was current is likely, but for a historian to a.s.sert on such authority is scandalous.

King a.s.serts that the unrepresented boroughs were "_about twenty-nine_."

Now, there were but _eighteen_ boroughs unrestored; but King helps out the falsehood by inserting places--Thurles, Tipperary, Arklow, and Birr--which _never_ had members before or since, by _creating_ a _second_ town of Kells, by transferring St. Johnstown in Longford which returned members, to St. Johnstown in Donegal, which was a seat of war, and by other tricks equally discreditable to his honesty and intelligence.

The towns unrestored _could_ not have sent members to James's parliament, and it was apparently doubted whether they ought to have done so to William's in '92.

Against the Commons actually elected the charge is that only six Protestants were elected. In the very section containing the charge it is much qualified by other statements. "Thus," he says, "one Gerard Dillon, Sergeant-at-Law, a most furious Papist, was Recorder of Dublin, and he stood to be chosen one of the burgesses for the city, but could not prevail, because he had purchased a considerable estate under the Act of Settlement, and they feared lest this might engage him to defend it;" and therefore they chose Sir Michael Creagh and Terence Dermot, their Senior Aldermen, showing pretty clearly that the good citizens of Dublin set little value on the "furious Popery" of Prime Sergeant Dillon, in comparison with their property plundered by the Act of Settlement.

The election for Trinity College is worthy of notice. We have it set out in flaming paragraphs how horribly the College was used, worse than any other borough, "Popish Fellows" being intruded. "In the house they placed a Popish garrison, turned the chapel into a magazine, and many of the chambers into prisons for Protestants." (King, p. 220, Ed.

1744.) Yet, _miraculous_ to say, in the heart of this "Popish garrison," the "turned-out Vice-Provost, Fellows, and Scholars" met, and elected two most bold, notable, and Protestant Williamites.

If this election could take place in Dublin, under the very nose of the Government, and in a corporation in which the king had unquestioned control, one will hesitate about the compulsion or exclusion in other places.

Besides Sir John Meade and Mr. Joseph Coghlan, the members for the College, there "were four more Protestants returned, of whose behaviour I can give no account," says King. Pity he does not give the names.

If we were to allow a similar error in King's account of the creed of the elected, that we have proved in his lists of the borough electors, it would raise the number of Protestants in the house to about fourteen.

Allowing then for the Protestants in arms against the Government--out of the country, or within the seat of war--the disproportion between their representatives and the Roman Catholics will lessen greatly.

One thing more is worth noticing in the Commons, and that is a sort of sept representation. Thus we see O'Neills in Antrim, Tyrone, and Armagh; Magennises in Down; O'Reillys in Cavan; Martins, Blakes, Kirwans, Dalys, Bourkes for Connaught; MacCarthys, O'Briens, O'Donovans for Cork and Clare; Farrells for Longford; Graces, Purcells, Butlers, Welshs, Fitzgeralds for Tipperary, Kilkenny, Kildare, etc.; O'Tooles, Byrnes, and Eustaces for Wicklow; MacMahons for Monaghan; Nugents, Bellews, Talbots, etc., for North Leinster.