Part 2 (2/2)

But more than that: Roman Catholics who fled from the tyranny of the penal laws at home had no scruple, when they reached the Continent, in taking part in persecutions far more terrible than anything they had seen in Ireland. During the dragonnades in Languedoc, Louis XIV's Irish brigade joined eagerly in the butchery of old men, women and children and the burning of whole villages. The same heroes distinguished themselves by destroying everything they could find in remote Alpine valleys so that the unfortunate Waldenses might die of starvation. And the Irish troops under Lord Mountcashel aided in the burning of 1,000 villages in the Palatinate of the Rhine, in which all the inhabitants--men, women and children--were slain by the sword, burnt to death, or left to perish from hunger. These persecutions were practically brought to an end by the French Revolution and the rise of modern ideas; but the ecclesiastical authorities, though they have lost their power, have shown no sign of having changed their principles. Even in the middle of the nineteenth century King Victor Emmanuel was excommunicated by Pope Pius IX for allowing his Vaudois subjects to build a church for themselves at Turin.

Of course it may be said with perfect truth that two blacks do not make one white. Still, the constant complaints about the tyranny of the penal laws have less force when they come from the representatives of a party who acted in the same way themselves whenever they had the opportunity.

It is indeed frequently urged as a matter of aggravation that whereas other persecutions were those of a minority by a majority, this was of a majority by a minority. To me, so far as this makes any difference at all, it tells the other way. As a matter of morality, I fail to see any difference; putting all the inhabitants of an Alpine valley to death as heretics does not seem to me one whit the less horrible because the sovereign also ruled a large Catholic population on the plains. On the other hand, the fact that the Roman Catholics in Ireland formed the majority of the population prevented the persecution from being strictly carried out. It was comparatively easy for Louis XIV to surround a heretic district with a cordon of soldiers, and then draw them closer together searching every house as they went, seizing the clergy and taking them off to the galleys; but it was impossible to track unregistered priests through the mountains and valleys of Munster. Hence the law as to the registration of priests soon became a dead letter.

There was indeed one great difference, between Irish and continental persecution. On the continent it was the holiest and best men who were the keenest persecutors. (This may seem strange to modern readers; but anyone who has studied the lives of Bossuet and San Carlo Borromeo will admit that it is true.) Hence the persecution was carried out with that vigour which was necessary to make it a success. In Spain, if a heretic under torture or the fear of it consented to recant, the Holy Office was not satisfied with a mere formal recantation; for the rest of his life the convert was watched day and night to see that there was no sign of back-sliding; and even the possession of a fragment of the New Testament was considered as sufficient evidence of a relapse to send the wretched man to the stake. Consequently, in a generation or two heresy became as extinct as Christianity did amongst the Kabyles of North Africa after the Mohammedan persecution. In Ireland, however, persecution was always against the grain with religiously-minded Protestants. Seven bishops protested against the first enactment of the Penal Laws; and during the period when they were in force, the bishops repeatedly spoke and voted in favour of each proposed mitigation of them. (With this one may contrast the action of the French bishops who on the accession of Louis XVI in 1774 presented an address to the new king urging him to increase the persecution of the Huguenots which had become somewhat slack during the later years of his predecessor. By the irony of fate the same men were a few years later pleading vainly for the mercy which they had never shown in the days of their power.) Nor was this tolerant feeling confined to the bishops. By the aid of the Protestant gentry, the laws were continually being evaded. Protestants appointed by the Court as guardians of Roman Catholic children, used to carry out the wishes of the Roman Catholic relations; Roman Catholic proprietors frequently handed over their estates to Protestant friends as Trustees, and, though such Trusts were of course not enforceable at law, there were very few instances in which they were not faithfully performed. Many strange stories are told of the evasions of the Acts. On one occasion whilst it was still illegal for a popish recusant to own a horse of a greater value than 5, a man met a Roman Catholic gentleman who was riding a handsome horse; he held out 5 in one hand, and with the other caught hold of the bridle. The rider, naturally infuriated at this, struck the man with his whip so heavily that he fell down dead.

When he was tried for murder, the judge decided that as the man had laid a hand on the bridle, the rider had reason to suppose that he intended to take it as well as the horse, which would have been an illegal act; consequently he was justified in defending himself against highway robbery; and therefore the charge must be dismissed.

Again, a Roman Catholic proprietor found out that an effort was likely to be made to deprive him of his estate. He rode up to Dublin on a Sat.u.r.day; on Sunday he received the Holy Communion at a Protestant Church; on Monday he executed a deed transferring his estate to a Protestant friend as Trustee; on Tuesday he was received back into the Church of Rome; and on Wednesday he rode home again, to enjoy his estate free from further molestation.

The schools which were founded in order to convert the rising generation were a strange contrast to the admirably conducted inst.i.tutions established in France and Spain for a similar purpose.

They were so disgracefully mismanaged that the pupils who had pa.s.sed through them looked back on everything that had been taught them there with a lifelong disgust.

It is needless to say that laws thus carried out were a dead failure as far as winning converts was concerned. On the other hand, they became in one sense the more galling as the enforcement of them fell into the hands of a low cla.s.s of informers who had no object beyond making money for themselves. Still, public feeling was so strong that by the middle of the century the laws had almost fallen into abeyance.

Brook, writing in 1762, says: ”Though these laws are still in force, it is long since they have been in action. They hang like a sword by a thread over the heads of these people, and Papists walk under them in security and peace; for whoever should adventure to cut this thread would become ignominious and detestable.” And in 1778 and 1782 (that is, when, as an Irish Roman Catholic writer has pointed out, there was still neither toleration nor peace for Protestant populations in any Catholic state in Europe) the Irish Protestant Parliament formally repealed nearly all the penal laws.

Probably their most lasting effect was that relating to the tenure of land. If free purchase and sale regardless of religion had been allowed throughout the eighteenth century, one may conjecture that the effect of the Cromwellian confiscations would long since have died away. But these laws perpetuated that peculiar state of things which has been the cause of so much unhappiness in Ireland--the landlords generally belonged to one religion, and their tenants and dependents to another.

It may be asked, As these odious laws all came to an end generations ago, what is the good of recalling the sorrows of the past which had much better be forgotten? I reply, None whatever; and very glad I should be if the whole subject were quietly dropped. But unfortunately that is just what the Roman Catholic party in Ireland will not do. One of the ways in which religious animosity is being kept alive (and I regret to say is being steadily increased) is by the teaching in the Roman Catholic schools of exaggerated accounts of the penal laws without referring to any of the mitigating circ.u.mstances. Even in the present year--1913--the Lenten pastoral of one of the bishops goes back to the same old subject. If other countries acted in a similar manner, how could the grievances of bygone centuries ever be forgotten? The Jews, cruelly treated though they were during the time of the Norman kings, do not harp on the subject in England to-day. It may be doubted whether all the religious persecutions of Europe put together were as great a disgrace to Christendom as the slave trade--in which, I am ashamed to say, England strove to obtain the pre-eminence amongst European nations and which she forced upon her colonies against their will. Yet I should regret it deeply if that were the one pa.s.sage of history selected for study in the schools and colleges for coloured pupils in the West Indies at the present day.

When a man who has suffered wrong in former years broods over it instead of thinking of his present blessings and his future prospects, one may be sure that he is a man who will not succeed in life; and what is true of individuals is true also of nations.

The expression ”Protestant ascendancy,” although it never came into use during the period with which we are dealing, has so frequently since then been employed with reference to it, that it is necessary to explain its meaning. Probably no word in the English language has suffered more from being used in different senses than the word ”Protestant.” In Ireland it frequently used to be, and still sometimes is, taken as equivalent to ”Anglican” or ”Episcopalian”; to an Irishman of the last century it would have appeared quite natural to speak of ”Protestants and Presbyterians,” meaning thereby two distinct bodies. This is a matter of historical importance; for so far from the Presbyterian element being favoured during the period of the Penal Laws, the English Toleration Act had not been extended to Ireland; Presbyterians were by the sacramental test excluded from all munic.i.p.al offices; their wors.h.i.+p, though never in practice interfered with, remained technically illegal. Their share in ”Protestant ascendancy”

was therefore very limited.

But if the Established Church was the one favoured body, it had to pay dearly for its privileges. In truth, the state of the Irish Church at this period of its history, was deplorable. All the positions of value--bishoprics, deaneries and important parishes--were conferred on Englishmen, who never resided in their cures, but left the duties either to be performed by half-starved deputies or not at all. Many of the churches were in ruins, and the glebes had fallen into decay; a union of half-a-dozen parishes would scarcely supply a meagre salary for one inc.u.mbent. A large proportion of the t.i.thes had been appropriated by laymen; how small a sum actually reached the clergy is shown by the fact that the first-fruits (that is, the year's income paid by inc.u.mbents on their appointment) did not amount to more than 500 a year in all. It may be that the standard of religious life was not lower in Ireland than it was in England when the spiritually-minded non-Jurors had been driven out and Hanoverian deadness was supreme; but in England there was no other Church to form a contrast. In Ireland the apathy and worldliness of the Protestant clergy stood out in bold relief against the heroic devotion of the priests and friars; and at the time when the unhappy peasants, forced to pay t.i.thes to a Church which they detested, were ready to starve themselves to support their own clergy and to further the cause of their religion, the well-to-do Protestant graziers and farmers were straining the law so as to evade the payment of t.i.thes, and never thought of doing anything further to support the Church to which they were supposed to belong. (It is but fair, however, to state that this condition of things has long since pa.s.sed away; the Evangelical revival breathed new life into the dry bones of Irish Protestantism.)

But it was not merely in religious matters that Ireland suffered during this melancholy period. Students of modern history whose researches usually commence with the early part of the nineteenth century, are wont to gather from text-books the idea that the policy of the manufacturing party in England has always been liberal, progressive and patriotic; whereas that of the landed interest has been retrograde and selfish. There cannot be a greater delusion.

English manufacturers have been just as self-seeking and narrow-minded as other people--no more and no less; they have been quite as ready to sacrifice the interests of others when they believed them to be opposed to their own, as the much-abused landowners. At this time every nation in Europe regarded the outlying portions of the Empire as existing only for the benefit of the centre; in fact, the English development of the ”Colonial System” even then was more liberal than those of Spain or Holland. The English system, if perfectly carried out, was by no means unfair. The ground idea was that the mother country voluntarily restricted herself in matters of trade for the benefit of the Colonies, and the Colonies had to do the same for the benefit of the mother country. Thus, when England refused to admit timber from the Baltic in order to benefit the Canadian lumber trade; and placed a prohibitive duty on sugar from Cuba so as to secure the English market for Jamaica; it was but fair that the trade in other articles from Canada and Jamaica should be directed to England. To say that the whole thing was a mistake, as such restrictions really injured both parties, is no answer, as no one at that time dreamed of such a thing as free trade. The real answer is that it was impossible to keep the balance true; some slight change of circ.u.mstances might render that unfair which up to then had been perfectly equal. And as the English merchants were on the spot and commanded votes in Parliament, any injustice against them would be speedily rectified; the colonists living at a distance and having no means of making their voice heard, would be left to suffer.

In applying the colonial system to Ireland, it is true that in theory England undertook to protect her by means of the British army and navy, from foreign foes; but beyond that, the system was to Ireland all loss and no gain. Every branch of Irish industry was deliberately ruined by the English Government. By the Navigation Act of 1663, trade between Ireland and the British Colonies was forbidden; soon after, the importation of Irish beef, mutton, pork and b.u.t.ter into England was prohibited; then, at the request of the English woollen manufacturers, the export of woollen goods from Ireland to any country was stopped; and finally, with a refinement of cruelty, the export of linen articles--the one industry that had hitherto been left to the unfortunate country--was restricted to the coa.r.s.est and poorest varieties, for fear of offending the Dutch.

The result of all this wretched misgovernment was not merely dest.i.tution bordering on famine, but a wholesale emigration. Whilst the Roman Catholics were leaving the country to avoid the penal laws, the most skilful and industrious of the artizan cla.s.s,--the very backbone of the nation--were being driven out by the prohibition of their trades. It is said that no less than 30,000 men were thrown out of employment by the destruction of the woollen industry alone. These were nearly all Protestants; to encourage them would have done more to Protestantize the country than all the penal laws and charter schools put together; but they were ruthlessly sacrificed to the greed of the English manufacturers. Some went to the Continent, many more to New England and the other American colonies, where they prospered, and they and their sons became some of Was.h.i.+ngton's best soldiers in the War of Independence.

It was only natural that thoughtful men in Ireland should cast envious eyes on Scotland, which had recently secured the benefit of union with England, and consequently was able to develop her commerce and manufactures unhindered. But though the subject of a union was discussed, and even referred to in addresses from the Irish Parliament to Queen Anne, no active steps were taken.

Still, in considering these commercial restrictions, as in the case of the penal laws, we must not lose sight of the fact that the state of circ.u.mstances we are dealing with has long pa.s.sed away. It is necessary for a historian to refer to it, even if he finds it hard to do so in a perfectly dispa.s.sionate way; but it is waste of time and energy for the present generation to go on brooding over woes which had come to an end before their grandfathers were born. Yet that is what the Nationalists of to-day are doing. Not long ago, the Old Boys' a.s.sociation of an Irish Roman Catholic College resolved, very laudably, to found an annual prize at their alma mater. The subject they selected was an essay on the treatment by England of Irish industries before the year 1800! Had it been a Scotch or a German College, the subject chosen would probably have been, The progress in scientific knowledge during the last century, or, Improvements in means of travel since 1820; and one must ask, which subject of study is likely to be most profitable to young men who have to make their way in the modern world?

It may be asked, why did the Irish Parliament do nothing to stay this national ruin? The answer is that the Irish Parliament possessed very little power. The Bill of Rights of course did not apply to Ireland; general elections were very rare, and a large number of members were paid officers of the Government; the English Parliament had a co-ordinate power of legislating for Ireland; and since Poyning's Act (as explained by the declaratory Act of George I) was still in force, no Bill could be introduced into the Irish Parliament until it had been approved both by the Irish and the English Councils; and the Irish Parliament might then pa.s.s it or reject it but had no power to amend it.

And the use which the English Government made of the Irish Parliament was as disgraceful as their treatment of Irish industries. Miserably poor though the country was, it was burdened by the payment of pensions of a nature so scandalous that the English Parliament even of that period would not have tolerated them.

The conditions of land tenure also added to the miseries of the country. It is often said that the land belonged to wealthy English absentees, and the unfortunate occupiers, who had no security of tenure, were ground down by the payment of exorbitant rents. This is literally true; but, like most partial statements, misleading. Much of the land was owned by wealthy Englishmen--which of itself was a serious evil; but they let it in large farms at low rents on long leases, in the hope that the occupiers would execute their own improvements. Instead of that, however, their tenants sublet their holdings in smaller lots to others; and these subtenants did the same again; thus there were sometimes three or four middlemen, and the rent paid by the actual occupier to his immediate landlord was ten times the amount the nominal owner received. As the rate of wages was miserably low, and the rent of a cabin and a plot of ground scandalously high, how the wretched occupiers managed to keep body and soul together is a mystery. Much has been written about the useless, dissipated lives of these middlemen or ”squireens”; and no doubt it is to a great extent true, although, like everything else in Ireland, it has been exaggerated. Travellers have told us of some landlords who resided on their estates, did their utmost to improve them, and forbade subletting (in spite of the unpopularity caused by their doing so). And one of the remarkable features of later Irish history is that whenever there was a period of acute difficulty and danger there were always country gentlemen to be found ready to risk their lives and fortunes or to undertake the thankless and dangerous duties of county magistrates.

It is curious how close a parallel might be drawn between the way in which Norman Ireland was Ersefied and that in which Cromwellian Ireland was Catholicized. Many of those who became large landowners by the Cromwellian confiscations, having no religious prejudices (some might say, no religious or humane feelings), when the leases of their tenants fell in, put the farms up to auction regardless of the feelings of the occupiers. As the Roman Catholics were content with a simpler manner of life than the Protestants, they generally offered higher rents; the dispossessed Protestants, driven from their homes, joined their brethren in America. Then in the South, the poorer of Cromwell's settlers, in some cases, neglected by their own pastors, joined the religion of the majority; in others, intermarrying with the natives, allowed their children to be brought up in the faith of their mothers. Hence we arrive at the curious fact that at the present day some of the most ardent Romanists and violent Nationalists, who are striving to have the Irish language enforced all over the country, and pose as the representatives of ancient Irish septs, are really the descendants of Cromwell's soldiers.

So pa.s.sed the greater part of the eighteenth century; and the unhappy country seemed as far off from progress and prosperity as ever.

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