Failure of Castlemaine's Negotiations.

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the chief prompters of the recent measures of the English Court.

One of the favours which Castlemaine was most especially instructed to solicit, was the grant of a Cardinal's hat for Father Petre, the Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit Order in England, and James's chief counsellor in all ecclesiastical matters. But with this request Innocent steadily refused compliance; and after a residence at Rome of about a twelvemonth, the ambassador returned to England, having brought nothing but ridicule on his master and on himself by the notorious failure of his mission, and the arrogant illtemper with which he bore it.

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CHAPTER III.

Violence of Lord Tyrconnel in Ireland-State of Ireland-The massacre of 1641-Tyrconnel succeeds Lord Clarendon as Lord Lieutenant The Protestants are gradually dismissed from employment-Conduct of the Government in Scotland-General hatred of Popery in the Scotch nation-James quarrels with the Privy Council and with the Estates-James dispenses with penal statutes in England--The case of Sir Edward Hales-Preferments in the Church are conferred on Roman Catholics-Establishment of a Court of High CommissionThe case of Dr. Sharp and Bishop Compton-Roman Catholic convents, &c., are established in London-Position and character of the Prince of Orange.

UNHAPPILY, the work entrusted to Tyrconnel was not equally barren of results. To him, as an Irishman, the whole conduct of affairs in Ireland was gradually committed; and it was the peculiar misfortune of that country that the King could not there prosecute his designs of setting Church against Church, without, at the same time, bringing on it the still greater evil of setting race against race; for in Ireland, if those who professed the Roman Catholic religion could complain of injustice, it was injustice which fell upon them, not as Roman Catholics, but as Irishmen. Those immigrants, whether of Norman, or, more rarely, of British blood, who had settled in Ireland under the Plantagenets, had, in a few generations, amalgamated so completely with the natives that, in the quaint language of an old statute, they had become more Irish than the Irish themselves.1

' Ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores.

Affairs of Ireland.

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The two races had become one, calling themselves, and being called, emphatically the Irish, to distinguish them from the settlers of English or Scotch blood who, since the accession of Elizabeth, had been induced to establish themselves in the country. Between these new-comers and the old inhabitants there was but little goodwill. The English and Scotch despised the Irish as little better than savages. The Irish hated them as intruders. Strafford, while he held the reins of Government as Lord Deputy, awed both into quiet; but, when he was removed, the international enmity. broke out fiercely, and in 1641 the Irish, under Sir Phelim O'Neill, rose in insurrection with the deliberate design of massacring all the English and Protestants in the land.

To a great extent they carried out their horrible purpose; they failed, indeed, in their attack on Dublin Castle, and were similarly baffled in one or two other places where vigilant leaders were warned in time, either by pitying friends, or by their own suspicions. But those who were thus saved were few; the great bulk of the new settlers were taken unawares, and all who fell into the hands of their enemies were slaughtered without mercy. The number of those who perished, greatly magnified at first, as was natural, by the exaggerations of fear, could only be reckoned by tens of thousands;1 and, if their fate bred in those who survived, and

The first estimates reached the incredible amount of 200,000. The latest and lowest, that of Sir W. Petty, reduced the number to 37,000. But the long struggle which ensued between the two parties was far more fatal than the first assault. "It is almost enough to say that the blood spilt in the winter of 1641-2, was not washed out till, according to the elaborate computation of Sir W. Petty, out of an entire population of 1,500,000, more than 500,000 had, by sword, famine, and pestilence, been miserably destroyed."-FROUDE: The English in Ireland, p. 113.

Twenty pages further on, Mr. Froude says, "The surviving population was estimated by Dr. Petty at about 850,000, of whom 150,000 were English

in those who afterwards came over, a detestation of the race whom they knew to have contrived the massacre, the ferocity with which Cromwell afterwards avenged it kept alive the feelings which had prompted it among the Irish themselves.

The hatred, therefore, which subsisted between the two races was now bitterer than ever; being, perhaps, aggravated on both sides by the feeling that their strength was less unequal than at any former period. In religion they dif fered wholly. Among the Irish there were few Protestants; among the English and Scotch there was probably not one Roman Catholic; so that to raise the Roman Catholic religion over Protestantism in Ireland was to raise the old Irish above the new settlers; and not only to intensify the feud existing between the two, which a wiser ruler would have made it his most anxious care to mitigate, but to give the preponderance to that race which was known to be hostile to English rule.

It has been truly pointed out that James had peculiar qualifications for allaying the animosities which existed, since the old Irish looked on him as a brother Catholic, the English and Scotch as a sovereign of their own blood; so that both parties might reasonably regard him as one disand Scots."—Ib. 133. It is remarkable that O'Neill did not at first intend to include the Scotch in the slaughter. "The Scots, of whom there were several thousand families in Ulster, were to be left, if possible, unmolested. To divide the interests of Scots from English would make the work more easy."-Ib. 98.

1 Lord Macaulay, Vol. II. 127, estimates the population of the whole island, in 1686, at nearly 2, 200,000, of whom about 200,000 were "colonists proud of their Saxon blood and of their Protestant faith.' But Mr. Froude, speaking of a time a few years earlier (1665), says, "The proportion of Protestants to Catholics had increased very considerably since the [Cromwellian] settlement. Of the latter, there were now 800,000; of the former 300,000."-The English in Ireland, p. 154. It is certain that the Protestants must have increased during the next twenty years.

Administration of Lord Tyrconnel.

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posed to look favourably on their claims, and therefore might be expected willingly to receive him as a mediator. But mediation requires impartiality, while both religious bigotry, and his belief in his right to absolute power, prevented James from putting on even the semblance of impartiality. They even restricted his choice of an agent to Irishmen; for, as he said, "there was work to be done in Ireland which no Englishman would do ;" and, so far as an utter absence of scruples or shame was needful in the servant he was to trust, it could not be denied that Tyrconnel was a fitting instrument. At first he was only appointed Commander-in-Chief, Clarendon being still allowed to remain as Lord-Lieutenant ; but at the beginning of 1687 the English governor was removed, and Tyrconnel was suffered to combine both offices. From the first moment, however, of his landing in Ireland, all the real power was in his hands, and the nominal Viceroy found himself compelled to submit to his dictation. As early as Monmouth's rebellion, Tyrconnel had begun to disarm the Protestant gentry on the plea that they favoured the invader; and even after that danger was past, Clarendon was compelled to prosecute the disarmament more stringently, and thus to leave the Protestants wholly at the mercy of their enemies.

Presently, fresh orders were sent over to fill the municipal corporations and the Privy Council with Roman Catholics, often of a rank from which Privy Councillors had never been taken before, so that the Protestant nobles refused to sit at the same Board with them, and the very men who were thus promoted were ashamed of their dignities, as conferred on them in open violation of all law and precedent. The Protestant bishoprics which fell in were kept vacant, that their revenues might be given to Roman Catholic pre