THE STORY OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 17 June 1920, Page 7

THE STORY OF IRELAND

(By A. M. Sullivan.)

CHAPTER LIII. — (Continued.) For two hundred years of history we shall find that “colonised” province, and the “colonists” generally, endowed, nursed, petted, protected, privileged• the especial care of the English Governmentwhilst the hapless native population were, during the same period, proscribed, “dead in law,” forbidden to trade, forbidden to educate, forbidden to own property; for each which prohibition, and many besides to a like intent, Acts of Parliament, with “day and date, word and letter,” may be cited. So great was the excitement created amongst the needy and greedy of all classes in England by the profuse dispensations of splendid estates, rich, fertile, and almost at their own doors, that the millions of acres in Ulster were soon all gone ; and still there were crowds of hungry adventurers yelling for “more, more.” James soon found a way for providing “more.” He constituted a roving commission of inquiry into “defective titles,” as he was pleased to phrase it—a peripatetic inquisition on the hunt for.spoil. The commissioners soon reported 385,000 acres in Leinster as “discovered,” inasmuch as the “titles” were not such as ought (in their judgment) to stand in the way of his Majesty’s designs. The working of this commission need scarcely be described. Even the historian, Leland, who would have been its apologist if he could, tells us there were not wanting “proofs of the most iniquitous practices, of hardened cruelty, of vile perjury, and scandalous subornation, employed to despoil the unfortunate proprietor of his inheritance;” . Old and obsolete claims, we are told, some of them dating as far back as Henry the Second, were revived, and advantage was taken of the most trivial flaws and minute informalities. In the midst of his plundering and colonising James died, March 27, 1625, and was succeeded by his son, Charles. Bitterly as the Irish Catholics had been undeceived as to James’s friendly dispositions, they gave theemselves up more warmly than ever to the belief that the young prince now just' come to the throne would afford them justice, tolerance, and protection. And here we have to trace a chapter of cruellest deceit, fraud, and betrayal of a too confiding people. The king and his favorite Ministers secretly encouraged these expectations. Charles needed money sorely, and his Irish representative, Lord Faulkland, told the Catholic lords that if they would present to his Majesty, as a voluntary subsidy, a good round sum of money, he would grant them certain protections or immunities, called “royal graces,” in the records of the time. “The more important: were those which provided ‘ that recusants should be allowed to practise in the courts of law, and to sue out the livery of their lands on taking an oath of civil, allegiance in lieu of the oath of supremacy ; that the undertakers in the several plantations, should have time allowed them to fulfil the condition of their tenures; that the claims of the crown should be limited to the last 60 years and that the inhabitants of Connacht should be permitted to make a new enrolment of their

estates.' The contract was duly ratified by a royal proclamation, in which the concessions were accompanied by a promise that a parliament should be held

to confirm them. The first instalment of the money was paid, and the Irish agents returned home, but only to learn that an order had been issued against ‘the Popish regular clergy,’ ” and that the royal promise was to be evaded in the most shameful manner. When the Catholics pressed for the fulfilment of the compact, the essential formalities for calling an Irish parliament were found to have been omitted by the officials, and thus the matter fell to the ground for the present.” In other words, the Irish Catholics were royally swindled. The miserable Charles pocketed the money, and then pleaded that certain of the “graces” were very “unreasonable.” He found that already the mere suspicion of an inclination on his* part to arrest the progress of persecution and plunder, was arousing and inflaming against him the fanatical Calvinistic section of English Protestantism, while his highhanded assertions of royal prerogative were daily bringing him into more dangerous conflict with his English parliament. To complete the complications surrounding him, the attempts to force Episcopalian Protestantism on the Calvinistic Scots led to open revolt. A Scottish rebel army took the field, demanding that the attempt to extend Episcopacy into Scotland should be given up, and that Calvinistic Presbyterianism should be acknowledged as the established religion of that kingdom. Charles marshalled an army to march against them. The parliament would not vote him suppliesindeed the now dominant party in parliament sympathised with and encouraged the rebels; but Charles, raising money as. best he could, proceeded northward. Nevertheless, he appears to

have recoiled from the idea of spilling the blood of his countrymen for a consideration of spiritual supremacy. He came to an arrangement with • the rebel Covenanters granting to them the liberty of conscience nay, religious supremacy—which they demanded, and even paying their army for a portion of the time it was under service in the rebellion. All this could not fail to attract the deepest attention of the Irish Catholic nobility and gentry, who found themselves in far worse plight than that which had moved the Calvinistic Scots to successful rebellion. Much less indeed than had been conceded to the rebel Covenanters would satisfy them. They did not demand that the Catholic religion should be set up as the established creed in Ireland ; they merely asked that the sword of persecution should not be bared against it; and for themselves they sought nothing beyond protection as good citizens in person and property and simple equality of civil rights. Wentworth, Charles’s representative in Ireland, had been pursuing against 1 them a course of the most scandalous and heartless robbery, pushing on the operations of the commission of inquiry into defective titles. “He commenced the work of plunder with Roscommon, and as a preliminary step, directed the sheriff to select should U m? aS . mi fi t be made amenable, ‘ in case they be, riinLT 5 or, in other words, they might be ruined by enormous fines, if they refused to find oblecfc ,C of f ?L th6 kin ?'- T, ’ e ™ told th?t fi the undoubted the commission was tn And 'a clear and undoubted title in the crown to the province of Connaught, and to make them ‘a civil and rich neon! » by means of a plantation; for IvhM nnU P • . Majesty should, of course, have the lands in his hands to distribute to fit and proper persons IT T wmen could not be misunderstood, the jury ded th^foSma^Si^&Dililr'to T™' Uplands m d t * re ” e ” be , red upon the ’dividing S judges. d aISO obtained a competent reward for su g o'; s l“i ,ar whr it had a ]ike success in Mayo and Sligo but when it came to the turn of tw wealthy and populous county of Galway, the Tm-y S -^ W Sa ! lcbiol the nefarious robbery -by tS ZTI Wentworth was furious at this rebuff and the unhappy jurors were punished without mercy and

their ‘ contumacy.’ They wee compelled to appear in the castle chamber, "where each of them was fined £4OOO, and their estates were seized and they themselves imprisoned until these fines should be paid, while the sheriff was fined £4OOO, and, being unable to pay that sum, died in prison. Wentworth proposed to seize the lands, not only of the jurors, but of all the gentry who neglected ‘ to lay hold on his Majesty s grace ’ ; he called for an increase of the army until the intended plantation should be settled,’ and recommended that the counsel who argued the cases against the king before the commissioners should be silenced until they took the oath of supremacy, which was accordingly done. ‘The gentlemen of Connacht,’ says Carte (Life of Ormond , vol. i.), ‘ labored under a particular hardship on this occasion; for their not having enrolled their patents and surrenders of the 13th Jacobi (which was what alone rendered their titles defective) was not their fault, but the neglect of a clerk entrusted by them. For they had paid near £3OOO to the officers in Dublin for the enrolment of these surrenders and patents, which was never made.’ ” (To be continued.)