Volume II Part 23 (1/2)
[63] Id., ii., 85 sqq.
[64] /Declaration of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, etc., 1641/.
[65] Cf. Dunlop, op. cit. (the official doc.u.ments are given in this book). Prendergast, /The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland/, 2nd ed., 312 sqq. (References to P. R. Doc.). Moran, /Spicil Ossor./, i., 374-428.
[66] Williams, /The Regicides in Ireland/ (/Irish. Ecc. Record/, Aug., 1914).
[67] Prendergast, op. cit., 232 sqq.
[68] On the Cromwellian Plantation, cf. Dunlop, op. cit. (Introduction and Doc.u.ments). Prendergast, /Cromwellian Settlement/.
[69] Burke, /Irish Priests in the Penal Times/, 11-12.
[70] /Irish Eccl. Record/, 1st ser., vi., 501-15.
[71] Walsh, /History and Vindication of the loyal Formulary or Irish Remonstrance, etc., 1672/.
[72] c.o.x, /A Letter/, etc., 11.
[73] c.o.x, op. cit., 14.
[74] For an account of the Ven. Oliver Plunket, cf. Moran, /Memoir of the Ven. Oliver Plunket/, 1861. Id., /Life of Oliver Plunket/, 1895. Burke, op. cit., 77 sqq.
[75] Moran, /Spicil. Ossor./, ii., 289 sqq.; iii., 109 sqq.
[76] On this Parliament, cf. Davis, /The Patriot Parliament of 1689/, 1893. Dunbar Ingram, /Two Chapters of Irish History/, 1888. King, /State of the Protestants of Ireland, 1691/. Leslie, /An Answer to a Book ent.i.tled the State of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King James, 1691/. Murphy, /Two Irish Parliaments/ (/Record of the Maynooth Union/, 1907-8).
[77] For an account of the war, cf. /A Jacobite Narrative of the War in Ireland/ (ed. Gilbert, 1892). /Macariae Excidium or the Destruction of Cyprus/ (ed. Crofton Croker, 1841, O'Callaghan, 1850). Boulger, /The Battle of the Boyne/, etc., 1911 (based on the French military reports).
CHAPTER XI
THE PENAL LAWS
Burke, /The Irish Priests in the Penal Times (1660-1760)/, 1914 (a valuable book, based on the State Papers preserved in the Record Office, the Bodleian Library and the British Museum). Curry, /An Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland from the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Settlement of King William III./, 2 vols., 1786. Klopp, /Der Fall des Hauses Stuart u.s.w./, 14 Bde., 1875-88. Madden, /Historical Notice of the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics/, 1865. Lecky, /History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century/, 5 vols. (new imp., 1913). Parnell, /History of the Penal Laws/, 1808. Id., /An Historical Apology for the Irish Catholics/, 1807. /Works and Correspondence of Edmund Burke/, 8 vols., 1851. Butler, /Historical Memoirs of English, Irish, and Scotch Catholics/, 4 vols., 1819. Scully, /The Penal Laws/, 1812. Murray, /Revolutionary Ireland and its Settlement/, 1911.
When the Irish leaders entered into correspondence with General Ginkle they were by no means reduced to the last extremity. The situation of the besiegers was rendered difficult by the approach of winter, and there was a danger that the city might be relieved at any moment by the appearance of a French fleet in the Shannon. Hence to avoid the risks attendant on the prolongation of the siege and to set free his troops for service on the Continent, where their presence was required so urgently, General Ginkle was willing to make many concessions.
Before the battle of Aughrim William had offered to grant the Catholics the free exercise of their religion, half the churches in the kingdom, and the moiety of the ecclesiastical revenues.[1] But the position of both parties had changed considerably since then, and Sarsfield and his companions could hardly expect so favourable terms.
They insisted, however, on toleration, and though the first clause of the treaty dealing expressly with that subject was drafted badly, they certainly expected they had secured it. In addition to the military articles the Peace of Limerick contained thirteen articles, the most important of which were the first, and the ninth. By these it was provided that the Catholics should enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as is consistent with the laws of Ireland, and as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II.; that their Majesties as soon as their affairs should permit them to summon a Parliament would endeavour to procure for Irish Catholics ”such further security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturbance upon account of their religion;” and that the oath to be administered to Catholics should be the simple oath of allegiance to William and Mary. ”Those who signed it [the Treaty],” writes Lecky, ”undertook that the Catholics of Ireland should not be in a worse position, in respect to the exercise of their religion, than they had been in during the reign of Charles II., and they also undertook that the influence of the government should be promptly exerted to obtain such an amelioration of their condition as would secure them from the possibility of disturbance. Construed in its plain and natural sense, interpreted as every treaty should be by men of honour, the Treaty of Limerick amounted to no less than this.”[2] The Treaty was ratified by the sovereigns in April 1692, and its contents were communicated to William's Catholic ally, the Emperor Leopold I. (1657-1705) as a proof that the campaign in Ireland was not a campaign directed against the Catholic religion.
The king was, therefore, pledged to carry out the agreement, and by means of the royal veto and the control exercised by the English privy council he could have done so notwithstanding the bigoted fanaticism of the Protestant minority in Ireland. Nor can it be said that the conduct of the Irish Catholics afforded any pretext for denying them the rights to which they were ent.i.tled. Once their military leaders and the best of their soldiers had pa.s.sed into the service of France there was little danger of a Catholic rebellion, and during the years between 1692 and 1760, even at times when the Jacobite forces created serious troubles in Scotland and England, the historian will search in vain for any evidence of an Irish conspiracy in favour of the exiled Stuarts. The penal laws were due solely to the desire of the Protestant minority to wreak a terrible vengeance on their Catholic countrymen, to get possession of their estates, to drive them out of public life, by excluding them from the learned professions and from all civil and military offices, to reduce them to a condition of permanent inferiority by depriving them of all means of education at home and abroad, to uproot their religion by banis.h.i.+ng the bishops and clergy, both regular and secular, and in a word to reduce them to the same position as the native population of the English plantations in the West Indies.
For some years, however, after the overthrow of the Irish forces, it was deemed imprudent by the king and his advisers to give the Irish Protestants a free hand. Louis XIV. was a dangerous opponent, and till the issue of the great European contest was decided it was necessary to move with caution at home. Besides, Leopold I., William's faithful ally, could not afford, even from the point of view of politics, to look on as a disinterested spectator at a terrible persecution of his own co-religionists in Ireland. But once the fall of Namur (1695) had made it clear that Louis XIV. was not destined to become the dictator of Europe, and above all once the Peace of Ryswick (1697) had set William free from a very embarra.s.sing alliance, the Protestant officials in Ireland were allowed a free hand. Parliament was convoked to meet in 1692. The Earl of Sydney was sent over as Lord Lieutenant, and in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Limerick Parliament should have confirmed the articles. But men like Dopping, the Protestant Bishop of Meath, took care to inflame pa.s.sion and bigotry by declaring that no faith should be kept with heretics, and when Parliament met it was in no mood to make any concessions. The few Catholic members who presented themselves were called upon to subscribe a Declaration against Transubstantiation prescribed by the English Parliament, but which had no binding force in Ireland. Having in this way excluded all Catholics from Parliament, an exclusion which lasted from 1692 till the days of the Union, the Houses pa.s.sed a bill recognising the new sovereigns, and another for encouraging foreign Protestants to settle in Ireland,[3] but they refused absolutely to confirm the Treaty of Limerick. After Parliament had been prorogued the privy council endeavoured to induce the Earl of Sydney to issue a proclamation ordering the bishops and clergy to depart from the kingdom, but under pretence of consulting the authorities in England he succeeded in eluding the would-be-persecutors, who were obliged to content themselves with indirect methods of striking at the priests, until Sydney was recalled, and until Lord Capel, a man after their own heart, arrived as Lord Lieutenant in 1695.
In August of that year Parliament met once more. In his opening speech the Lord Lieutenant struck a note likely to win the approval of his audience. ”My Lords and Gentlemen,” he said, ”I must inform you that the Lords Justices of England have, with great application and dispatch, considered and re-transmitted all the bills sent to them; that some of these bills have more effectually provided for your future security than hath ever hitherto been done; and, in my opinion, the want of such laws has been one of the greatest causes of your past miseries; and it will be your fault, as well as misfortune, if you neglect to lay hold of the opportunity, now put into your hands by your great and gracious king, of making such a lasting settlement, that it may never more be in the power of your enemies to bring the like calamities again upon you, or to put England to that vast expense of blood and treasure it hath so often been at for securing this kingdom to the crown of England.”[4] The measures taken to secure the Protestant settlement will repay study. It was enacted that no parent should send his children beyond seas for education under penalty, both for the sender and the person sent, of being disqualified ”to sue, bring, or prosecute any action, bill, plaint, or information in course of law, or to prosecute any suit in a court of equity, or to be guardian or executor, or administrator to any person, or capable of any legacy, or deed of gift, or to bear any office within the realm.”
In addition such persons were to be deprived of all their property, both real and personal. Any magistrate, who suspected that a child had been sent away could summon the parents or guardians and question them under oath, but failing any proof the mere absence of the child was to be taken as sufficient evidence of guilt. Popish schoolmasters in Ireland were forbidden to teach school under threat of a penalty of 20 and imprisonment for three months. But lest the Catholics might object that they had no means of education, it was enacted that every Protestant minister should open a school in his parish, and every Protestant bishop should see that a ”public Latin free-school” was maintained in his diocese. Having fortified Protestantism sufficiently on one flank, the members next proceeded to forbid Papists to keep ”arms, armour, or ammunition,” empowered magistrates to search the houses of all suspected persons, threatened severe penalties against all offenders, forbade the reception of Popish apprentices by manufacturers of war materials, prohibited all Catholics from having in their possession a horse over the value of 5, and empowered Protestant ”discoverers” of infringements of this measure to become owners of their Catholic neighbour's horse by tendering him five pounds. Lest these laws might become a dead letter it was enacted that if any judge, mayor, magistrate, or bailiff neglected to enforce them he should pay a fine of 50, half of which was to go to the informer, and besides, he should be declared incapable of holding such an office for ever. To prevent any misconception it was explained that all persons, who, when called upon, refused to make the Declaration against Transubstantiation, should be regarded as Papists.[5]
For so far, however, the opportune moment for a formal rejection of the Limerick Treaty had not arrived. But when Parliament met in 1697 it was deemed prudent to carry out the instruction of the Bishop of Meath, that no faith should be kept with Catholics. The Articles of Limerick were confirmed with most of the important clauses omitted or altered. The first clause guaranteeing toleration was deemed unfit to be mentioned in the bill. It is clear that in the House of Lords grave difficulties were urged against such a wholesale neglect of the terms of the treaty, and that it was necessary to invoke the authority of the king and of the English privy council before the measure was pa.s.sed. Seven of the lay lords, and six of the Protestant bishops lodged a solemn protest against what had been done. Amongst the reasons which they a.s.signed for their disagreement with the majority were: ”(1) Because we think the t.i.tle of the Bill doth not agree with the body thereof, the t.i.tle being, An Act for the Confirmation of Articles made at the Surrender of Limerick, whereas no one of the said articles is therein, as we conceive, fully confirmed; (2) because the said Articles were to be confirmed in favour of them, to whom they were granted, but the confirmation of them by the Bill is such, that it puts them in a worse condition than they were before, as we conceive; ... (4) because several words are inserted in the bill, which are not in the Articles, and others omitted, which alter both the sense and meaning, as we conceive.”[6]
The way was now clear for beginning the attack upon the clergy. An Act was pa.s.sed ordering ”all Popish archbishops, bishops, vicars-general, deans, Jesuits, monks, friars, and all other regular Popish clergy, and all Papists exercising any ecclesiastical jurisdiction” to depart from the kingdom before the 1st May 1698, under threat for those who remained beyond the specified time, of being arrested and kept in prison till they could be transported beyond the seas. They were commanded to a.s.semble before the 1st May at the ports of Dublin, Cork, Kinsale, Youghal, Waterford, Wexford, Galway, or Carrickfergus, register themselves at the office of the mayor, and await till provision could be made for transporting them. All such ecclesiastics were forbidden to come into the kingdom after the 29th December 1697, under pain of imprisonment for twelve months, and if any such person ventured to return after having been transported he should be adjudged guilty of high treason. If any person knowingly harboured, relieved, concealed, or entertained any popish ecclesiastic after the dates mentioned he was to forfeit 20 for the first offence, 40 for the second, and all his lands and property for the third offence, half to go (if not exceeding 100) to the informer. Justices of the peace were empowered to summon all persons charged upon oath with having aided or received ecclesiastics and to levy these fines, or to commit the accused person to the county jail till the fines should be paid. All persons whatsoever were forbidden after the 29th December 1697, to bury any deceased person ”in any suppressed monastery, abbey, or convent, that is not made use of for celebrating divine service, according to the liturgy of the Church of Ireland as by law established, or within the precincts thereof, under pain of forfeiting the sum of ten pounds,” which sum might be recovered off any person attending a burial in such circ.u.mstances. Justices of the peace were empowered to issue warrants for the arrest of ecclesiastics who came into Ireland, or remained there in defiance of these statutes, and were commanded to give an account of their work in this respect at the next quarter sessions held in their counties. Finally, it was provided that any justice of the peace or mayor who neglected to enforce this law should pay a fine for every such offence of 100, half of which was to be paid to the informer, and should be disqualified for serving as a justice of the peace. An Act was also pa.s.sed ”to prevent Protestants intermarrying with Papists.” If any Protestant woman, heir to real estate or to personal estate value 500 or upwards, married a husband without having first got ”a certificate in writing under the hand of the minister of the parish, bishop of the diocese, and some justice of the peace,” and attested by two witnesses that her intended husband was a Protestant, the estates or property devolved immediately on the next of kin if a Protestant; and if any man married without having got a similar certificate that the lady of his choice was a Protestant he became thereby disqualified to act as a guardian or executor, to sit in the House of Commons, or to hold any civil or military office, unless he could prove that within one year he had converted his wife to the Protestant religion. Any clergyman a.s.sisting at such marriages was liable to a penalty of 20, half of which was to be paid to the informer.[7]