were prevailed upon to obey, is unknown; but that they amounted to a considerable number is plain from the fact that the lands allotted to them in lieu of their third portions extended to more than eight hundred thousand English acres. Many, however, refused. Retiring into bogs and fastnesses, they formed bodies of armed men, and supported themselves and their followers by the depredations which they committed on the occupiers of their estates. They were called Raperees and Tories;[1] and so formidable did they become to the new settlers, that in certain districts, the sum of two hundred pounds was offered for the head of the leader of the band, and that of forty pounds for the head of any one of the privates.[2]
To maintain this system of spoliation, and to coerce the vindictive pa.s.sions of the natives, it became necessary to establish martial law, and to enforce regulations the most arbitrary and oppressive. No Catholic was permitted to reside within any garrison or market town, or to remove more than one mile from his own dwelling without a pa.s.sport describing his person, age, and occupation; every meeting of four persons besides the family was p.r.o.nounced an illegal and treasonable a.s.sembly; to carry arms, or to have arms at home, was made a capital offence; and any transplanted Irishman, who was found on the left bank of the Shannon, might be put to death by the first person who met him, without the order of a magistrate.
Seldom has any nation been reduced to a state of bondage more galling and oppressive. Under
[Footnote 1: This celebrated party name, "Tory," is derived from "toruighim," to pursue for the sake of plunder.--O"Connor, Bib. Stowensis, ii. 460.]
[Footnote 2: Burton"s Diary, ii. 210.]
the pretence of the violation of these laws, their feelings were outraged, and their blood was shed with impunity. They held their property, their liberty, and their lives, at the will of the petty despots around them, foreign planters, and the commanders of military posts, who were stimulated by revenge and interest to depress and exterminate the native population.[1]
IV. The religion of the Irish proved an additional source of solicitude to their fanatical conquerors. By one of the articles concluded with Lord Westmeath, it was stipulated that all the inhabitants of Ireland should enjoy the benefit of an act lately pa.s.sed in England "to relieve peaceable persons from the rigours of former acts in matters of religion;" and that no Irish recusant should be compelled to a.s.sist at any form of service contrary to his conscience. When the treaty was presented for ratification, this concession shocked and scandalized the piety of the saints. The first part was instantly negatived; and, if the second was carried by a small majority through the efforts of Marten and Vane, it was with a proviso that "the article should not give any the least allowance, or countenance, or toleration, to the exercise of the Catholic worship in any manner whatsoever."[2]
In the spirit of these votes, the civil commissioners ordered by proclamation[a] all Catholic clergymen to quit Ireland within twenty days, under the penalties of high treason, and forbade all other persons to harbour any such clergymen under the pain of death. Additional provisions tending to the same object followed in succession. Whoever knew of the concealment
[Footnote 1: Bruodin, 693. Hibernia Dominicana, 706.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, 1652, June 1.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Jan. 6.]
of a priest, and did not reveal it to the proper authorities, was made liable to the punishment of a public whipping and the amputation of his ears; to be absent on a Sunday from the service at the parish church, subjected the offender to a fine of thirty pence; and the magistrates were authorized to take away the children of Catholics and send them to England for education, and to tender the oath of abjuration to all persons of the age of one and twenty years, the refusal of which subjected them to imprisonment during pleasure, and to the forfeiture of two-thirds of their estates real and personal.[1]
During this period the Catholic clergy were exposed to a persecution far more severe than had ever been previously experienced in the island. In former times the chief governors dared not execute with severity the laws against the Catholic priesthood, and the fugitives easily found security on the estates of the great landed proprietors. But now the Irish people lay prostrate at the feet of their conquerors; the military were distributed in small bodies over the country; their vigilance was sharpened by religious antipathy and the hope of reward; and the means of detection were facilitated by the prohibition of travelling without a license from the magistrates. Of the many priests who still remained in the country, several were discovered, and forfeited their lives on the gallows; those who escaped detection concealed themselves in the caverns of the mountains, or in lonely hovels raised in the midst of the mora.s.ses, whence they issued during the night to carry the consolations
[Footnote 1: Hibernia Dominicana, 707. Bruodin, 696. Porter, Compendium Annalium Eecclesiasticorum (Romae, 1690), p. 292.]
of religion to the huts of their oppressed and suffering countrymen.[1]
3. In Scotland the power of the commonwealth was as firmly established as in Ireland. When Cromwell hastened in pursuit of the king to Worcester, he left Monk with eight thousand men to complete the conquest of the kingdom.
Monk invested Stirling; and the Highlanders who composed the garrison, alarmed by the explosion of the sh.e.l.ls from the batteries, compelled[a] the governor to capitulate. The maiden castle, which had never been violated by the presence of a conqueror,[2] submitted to the English "sectaries;" and, what was still more humbling to the pride of the nation, the royal robes, part of the regalia, and the national records, were irreverently torn from their repositories, and sent to London as the trophies of victory. Thence the English general marched forward to Dundee, where he received a proud defiance from Lumsden, the governor. During the preparations for the a.s.sault, he learned that the Scottish lords, whom Charles had intrusted with the government in his absence, were holding a meeting on the moor at Ellet, in Angus. By his order, six hundred horse, under the colonels Alured and Morgan, aided, as it was believed, by treachery, surprised them at an early hour in the morning.[b] Three hundred prisoners were made, including the two committees of
[Footnote 1: MS. letters in my possession. Bruodin, 696. A proclamation was also issued ordering all nuns to marry or leave Ireland. They were successively transported to Belgium, France, and Spain, where they were hospitably received in the convents of their respective orders.]
[Footnote 2: "Haec n.o.bis invicta tulerunt centum s.e.x proavi, 1617," was the boasting inscription which King James had engraved on the wall.--Clarke"s official account to the Speaker, in Cary, ii. 327. Echard, 697.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Aug. 14.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Aug. 28.]
the estates and the kirk, several peers, and all the gentry of the neighbourhood; and these, with such other individuals as the general deemed hostile and dangerous to the commonwealth, followed the regalia and records of their country to the English capital. At Dundee a breach was soon made in the wall: the defenders shrunk from the charge of the a.s.sailants; and the governor and garrison were ma.s.sacred.[a] I must leave it to the imagination of the reader to supply the sufferings of the inhabitants from the violence, the l.u.s.t, and the rapacity of their victorious enemy. In Dundee, on account of its superior strength, many had deposited their most valuable effects; and all these, with sixty ships and their cargoes in the harbour, became the reward of the conquerors.[1]
Warned by this awful example, St. Andrews, Aberdeen, and Montrose opened their gates; the earl of Huntley and Lord Balcarras submitted; the few remaining fortresses capitulated in succession; and if Argyle, in the midst of his clan, maintained a precarious and temporary independence, it was not that he cherished the expectation of evading the yoke, but that he sought to draw from the parliament the acknowledgment of a debt which he claimed of the English
[Footnote 1: Heath, 301, 302. Whitelock, 508. Journals, Aug. 27.
Milton"s S. Pap. 79. Balfour, iv. 314, 315. "Mounche commaundit all, of quhatsummeuer s.e.x, to be putt to the edge of the sword. Ther wer 800 inhabitants and souldiers killed, and about 200 women and children. The plounder and b.u.t.tie they gatte in the toune, exceided 2 millions and a halffe" (about 200,000). That, however, the whole garrison was not put to the sword appears from the mention in the Journals (Sept. 12) of a list of officers made prisoners, and from Monk"s letter to Cromwell. "There was killed of the enemy about 500, and 200 or thereabouts taken prisoners.
The stubbornness of the people enforced the soldiers to plunder the town."--Cary"s Memorials, ii. 351.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651 Sept. 1.]
government.[1] To destroy the prospect, by showing the hopelessness of resistance, the army was successively augmented to the amount of twenty thousand men;[2] citadels were marked out to be built of stone at Ayr, Leith, Perth, and Inverness; and a long chain of military stations drawn across the Highlands served to curb, if it did not tame, the fierce and indignant spirit of the natives. The parliament declared the lands and goods of the crown public property, and confiscated the estates of all who had joined the king or the duke of Hamilton in their invasions of England, unless they were engaged in trade, and worth no more than five pounds, or not engaged in trade, and worth only one hundred pounds. All authority derived from any other source than the parliament of England was abolished[a] by proclamation; the different sheriffs, and civil officers of doubtful fidelity, were removed for others attached to the commonwealth; a yearly tax of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds was imposed in lieu of free quarters for the support of the army; and English judges, a.s.sisted by three or four natives, were appointed to go the circuits, and to supersede the courts of session.[3] It was with grief
[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 315. Heath, 304, 308, 310, 313. Whitelock, 514, 534, 543.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, Dec. 2, 1652.]
[Footnote 3: Ludlow, 345. Heath, 313, 326. Whitelock, 528, 542. Journals, Nov. 19. Leicester"s Journal, 129. The English judges were astonished at the spirit of litigation and revenge which the Scots displayed during the circuit. More than one thousand individuals were accused before them of adultery, incest, and other offences, which they had been obliged to confess in the kirk during the last twenty or thirty years. When no other proof was brought, the charge was dismissed. In like manner sixty persons were charged with witchcraft. These were also acquitted; for, though they had confessed the offence, the confession had been drawn from them by torture. It was usual to tie up the supposed witch by the thumbs, and to whip her till she confessed; or to put the flame of a candle to the soles of the feet, between the toes, or to parts of the head, or to make the accused wear a shirt of hair steeped in vinegar &c.--See Whitelock, 543, 544, 545, 547, 548.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Jan. 22.]
and shame that the Scots yielded to these innovations; though they were attended with one redeeming benefit, the prevention of that anarchy and bloodshed which must have followed, had the Cavaliers and Covenanters, with forces nearly balanced, and pa.s.sions equally excited, been left to wreck their vengeance on each other. But they were soon threatened with what in their eyes was a still greater evil. The parliament resolved to incorporate the two countries into one commonwealth, without kingly government or the aristocratical influence of a house of peers. This was thought to fill up the measure of Scottish misery. There is a pride in the independence of his country, of which even the peasant is conscious; but in this case not only national but religious feelings were outraged. With the civil consequences of an union which would degrade Scotland to the state of a province, the ministers in their ecclesiastical capacity had no concern; but they forbade[a] the people to give consent or support to the measure, because it was contrary to the covenant, and tended "to draw with it a subordination of the kirk to the state in the things of Christ."[1] The parliamentary commissioners (they were eight, with St. John and Vane at their head), secure of the power of the sword, derided the menaces of the kirk. They convened at Dalkeith the representatives of the counties and burghs, who were ordered to bring with them full powers to treat and conclude respecting the incorporation of the two countries. Twenty-eight
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 521. Heath, 307.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Jan. 21]
out of thirty shires, and forty-four out of fifty-eight burghs, gave their consent; and the result was a second meeting at Edinburgh, in which twenty-one deputies were chosen to arrange the conditions with the parliamentary commissioners at Westminster. There conferences were held,[a]
and many articles discussed; but, before the plan could be amicably adjusted, the parliament itself, with all its projects, was overturned[b]
by the successful ambition of Cromwell.[1]
4. From the conquest of Ireland and Scotland we may now turn to the transactions between the commonwealth and foreign powers. The king of Portugal was the first who provoked its anger, and felt its vengeance. At an early period in 1649, Prince Rupert, with the fleet which had revolted from the parliament to the late king, sailed[c] from the Texel, swept the Irish Channel, and inflicted severe injuries on the English commerce. Vane, to whose industry had been committed the care of the naval department, made every exertion to equip a formidable armament, the command of which was given to three military officers, Blake, Dean, and Popham. Rupert retired[d] before this superior force to the harbour of Kinsale; the batteries kept his enemies at bay; and the Irish supplied him with men and provisions. At length the victories of Cromwell by land admonished him to quit his asylum; and, with the loss of three ships, he burst[e] through the blockading squadron, sailed to the coast of Spain, and during the winter months sought shelter in the waters of the Tagus. In spring, Blake appeared[f] with eighteen men-of-war at the mouth of the river; to his request that he
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1652, March 16, 24, 26, April 2, May 14, Sept. 15, 29, Oct. 29, Nov. 23.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Sept. 22.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 12.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. March.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. May.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. October.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1650. March.]
might be allowed to attack the pirate at his anchorage, he received from the king of Portugal a peremptory refusal; and, in his attempt to force his way up the river he was driven back by the fire from the batteries. In obedience to his instructions, he revenged himself on the Portuguese trade, and Don John, by way of reprisal, arrested the English merchants, and took possession of their effects. Alarmed, however, by the losses of his subjects, he compelled[a] Rupert to quit the Tagus,[1] and despatched[b]
an envoy, named Guimaraes, to solicit an accommodation. Every paper which pa.s.sed between this minister and the commissioners was submitted to the parliament, and by it approved, or modified, or rejected. Guimaraes subscribed[c] to the preliminaries demanded by the council, that the English merchants arrested in Portugal should be set at liberty, that they should receive an indemnification for their losses, and that the king of Portugal should pay a sum of money towards the charges of the English fleet; but he protracted the negotiation, by disputing dates and details, and was haughtily commanded[d] to quit the territory of the commonwealth.
Humbling as it was to Don John, he had no resource; the Conde de Camera was sent,[e] with the t.i.tle of amba.s.sador extraordinary; he a.s.sented to every
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 134, 142, 155. Heath, 254, 256, 275. Whitelock, 406, 429, 449, 463, 475. Clarendon, iii. 338. Rupert sailed into the Mediterranean, and maintained himself by piracy, capturing not only English but Spanish and Genoese ships. All who did not favour him were considered as enemies. Driven from the Mediterranean by the English, he sailed to the West Indies, where he inflicted greater losses on the Spanish than the English trade. Here his brother, Prince Maurice, perished in a storm; and Rupert, unable to oppose his enemies with any hope of success, returned to Europe, and anch.o.r.ed in the harbour of Nantes, in March, 1652. He sold his two men-of-war to Cardinal Mazarin.--Heath, 337. Whitelock, 552. Clarendon, iii. 513, 520.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. October.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 17.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. April 22.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. May 16.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1652. July 7.]
demand; but the progress of the treaty was interrupted by the usurpation of Cromwell, and another year elapsed before it was[a] concluded. By it valuable privileges were granted to the English traders; four commissioners,--two English and two Portuguese, were appointed[b] to settle all claims against the Portuguese government; and it was agreed[c] that an English commissary should receive one-half of all the duties paid by the English merchants in the ports of Portugal, to provide a sufficient fund for the liquidation of the debt.[1]
5. To Charles I. (nor will it surprise us, if we recollect his treatment of the Infanta) the court of Spain had always behaved with coldness and reserve. The amba.s.sador Cardenas continued to reside in London, even after the king"s execution, and was the first foreign minister whom the parliament honoured with a public audience. He made it his chief object to cement the friendship between the commonwealth and his own country, fomented the hostility of the former against Portugal and the United Provinces, the ancient enemies of Spain, and procured the a.s.sent of his sovereign that an accredited minister from the parliament should be admitted by the court of Madrid. The individual selected[d] for this office was Ascham, a man who, by his writings, had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious to the royalists. He landed[e] near Cadiz, proceeded under an escort for his protection to Madrid, and repaired[f] to an inn, till a suitable residence could be procured. The next day,[g] while he was sitting at dinner with Riba, a renegado friar, his interpreter,
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1650, Dec. 17; 1651, April 4, 11, 22, May 7, 13, 16; 1652, Sept. 30, Dec. 15; 1653, Jan. 5. Whitelock, 486. Dumont, vi. p. ii.
82.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Jan. 5.]