ungraciously added, had taken counsel | military administration should be in on these matters with persons more the hands of his friends.* competent to advise him than his inexperienced Lord Lieutenant could possibly be.* Accordingly several Roman Catholics were sworn of the Privy Council; and orders were sent to corporations Before this letter reached the viceroy to admit Roman Catholics to municipal the intelligence which it contained had, advantages. Many officers of the through many channels, arrived in army were arbitrarily deprived of their Ireland. The terror of the colonists commissions and of their bread. It was extreme. Outnumbered as they was to no purpose that the Lord Lieuwere by the native population, their tenant pleaded the cause of some whom condition would be pitiable indeed if he knew to be good soldiers and loyal the native population were to be armed subjects. Among them were old Cavaagainst them with the whole power of liers, who had fought bravely for the state; and nothing less than this monarchy, and who bore the marks of was threatened. The English inhabit-honourable wounds. Their places ants of Dublin passed each other in were supplied by men who had no the streets with dejected looks. On recommendation but their religion. Of the Exchange business was suspended. the new Captains and Lieutenants, it Landowners hastened to sell their was said, some had been cowherds, estates for whatever could be got, and some footmen, some noted marauders; to remit the purchase money to Eng- some had been so used to wear brogues land. Traders began to call in their that they stumbled and shuffled about debts, and to make preparations for strangely in their military jack boots. retiring from business. The alarm Not a few of the officers who were soon affected the revenue.† Clarendon discarded took refuge in the Dutch attempted to inspire the dismayed service, and enjoyed, four years later, settlers with a confidence which he the pleasure of driving their successors was himself far from feeling. He before them in ignominious rout from assured them that their property would the margin of the Boyne. be held sacred, and that, to his certain knowledge, the King was fully determined to maintain the Act of Settlement which guaranteed their right to the soil. But his letters to England were in a very different strain. He ventured even to expostulate with the King, and, without blaming His Majesty's intention of employing Roman Catholics, expressed a strong opinion that the Roman Catholics who might be employed ought to be Englishmen.+ The reply of James was dry and cold. He declared that he had no intention of depriving the English colonists of their land, but that he regarded a large portion of them as his enemies, and that, since he consented to leave so much property in the hands of his enemies, it was the more necessary that the civil and ⚫ Sunderland to Clarendon, March 11.168. The distress and alarm of Clarendon were increased by news which reached him through private channels. Without his approbation, without his knowledge, preparations were making for arming and drilling the whole Celtic population of the country of which he was the nominal governor. Tyrconnel from London directed the design; and the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church were his agents. Every priest had been instructed to prepare an exact list of all his male parishioners capable of bearing arms, and to forward it to his Bishop.§ It had already been rumoured that Tyrconnel would soon return to Dublin armed with extraordinary and indepen* James to Clarendon, April 6. 1686. † Sunderland to Clarendon, May 22. 1686; Clarendon to Ormond, May 30. ; Clarendon to Sunderland, July 6. 11. Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, § Clarendon to Rochester, May 15. 1686. C C at Duolin saw a Roman Catholic, whose face was quite unknown to him, escorting the state coach.* The change was not confined to the officers alone. The ranks were completely broken up and recomposed. Four or five hundred soldiers were turned out of a single regiment chiefly on the ground that they were below the proper stature. ceived that they were taller and better made men than their successors, whose wild and squalid appearance disgusted the beholders.† Orders were given to the new officers that no man of the to enlist. The recruiting parties, instead of beating their drums for volunteers at fairs and markets, as had been the old practice, repaired to places to which the Roman Catholics were in the habit of making pilgrimages for purposes of devotion. In a few weeks the General had introduced more than two thousand natives into the ranks; and the people about him confidently affirmed that by Christmas day not a man of English race would be left in the whole army.‡ dent powers; and the rumour gathered aware of what had happened till he strength daily. The Lord Lieutenant, whom no insult could drive to resign the pomp and emoluments of his place, declared that he should submit cheerfully to the royal pleasure, and approve himself in all things a faithful and obedient subject. He had never, he said, in his life, had any difference with Tyrconnel, and he trusted that no difference would now arise.* Claren-Yet the most unpractised eye at once perdon appears not to have recollected that there had once been a plot to ruin the fame of his innocent sister, and that in that plot Tyrconnel had borne a chief part. This is not exactly one of the injuries which highspirited men Protestant religion was to be suffered most readily pardon. But, in the wicked court where the Hydes had had long been pushing their fortunes, such injuries were easily forgiven and forgotten, not from magnanimity or Christian charity, but from mere baseness and want of moral sensibility. In Arrival of June 1686, Tyrconnel came. Tyrconnel His commission authorised as General. him only to command the troops: but he brought with him royal instructions touching all parts of the administration, and at once took the real government of the island into his On all questions which arose in the own hands. On the day after his ar- Privy Council, Tyrconnel showed rival he explicitly said that commis- similar violence and partiality. John sions must be largely given to Roman Keating, Chief Justice of the Common Catholic officers, and that room must Pleas, a man distinguished by ability, be made for them by dismissing more integrity, and loyalty, represented with Protestants. He pushed on the re- great mildness that perfect equality modelling of the army eagerly and was all that the General could reasonindefatigably. It was indeed the only ably ask for his own Church. part of the functions of a Commander King, he said, evidently meant that no in Chief which he was competent to man fit for public trust should be experform; for, though courageous in cluded because he was a Roman brawls and duels, he knew nothing of Catholic, and that no man unfit for military duty. At the very first review public trust should be admitted because which he held, it was evident to all he was a Protestant. Tyrconnel immewho were near him that he did not diately began to curse and swear. "I know how to draw up a regiment.† do not know what to say to that; To turn Englishmen out and would have all Catholics in." § The ality and to put Irishmen in was, in his violence. view, the beginning and the end of the administration of war. had the insolence to cashier the Captain of the Lord Lieutenant's own Body Guard; nor was Clarendon * Clarendon to Rochester, May 11. 1686. ↑ Ibid. June 8. 1686. His parti He The * Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland. † Clarendon to Rochester, June 26. and July 4. 1686; Apology for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689. Clarendon to Rochester, July 4. 22. 1686; to Sunderland, July 6.; to the King, August 14. § Clarendon to Rochester, June 19. 1686. but the dissolute and headstrong He re England. most judicious Irishmen of his own reli- | counsel were almost unanimous in gious persuasion were dismayed at his favour of the Act of Settlement. Not rashness, and ventured to remonstrate only the honest and moderate Powis, with him; but he drove them from him with imprecations.* His brutality was such that many thought him mad. Yet it was less strange than the shameless volubility with which he uttered falsehoods. He had long before earned the nickname of Lying Dick Talbot; and, at Whitehall, any wild fiction was commonly designated as one of Dick Talbot's truths. He now daily proved that he was well entitled to this unenviable reputation. Indeed in him mendacity was almost a disease. He would, after giving orders for the dismission of English officers, take them into his closet, assure them of his confidence and friendship, and implore Heaven to confound him, sink him, blast him, if he did not take good care of their interests. Sometimes those to whom he had thus perjured himself learned, before the day closed, that he had cashiered them.† He is bent on the repeal of the On his arrival, though he swore savagely at the Act of Settlement, and called the English interest a foul thing, a roguish thing, and a damned thing, he yet pretended to be convinced that the distribution of property could not, after the lapse of so many years, be altered. But when he had been a few weeks at Dublin, his language changed. He began to harangue vehemently at the Council board on the necessity of giving back the land Act of Set to the old owners. He had not, however, as yet obtained his master's sanction to this fatal project. National feeling still struggled feebly against superstition in the mind of James. He was an Englishman: he was an English King; and he could not, without some misgivings, consent to the destruction of the greatest colony that England had ever planted. The English Roman Catholics with whom he was in the habit of taking tlement. * Clarendon to Rochester, June 22. 1686. + Sheridan MS.; King's State of the Pro testants of Ireland, chap. iii. sec. 3. sec. 8. There is a most striking instance of Tyrconnel's impudent mendacity in Clarendon's Letter to Rochester, July 22. 1686. Clarendon to Rochester, June 8. 1686. His presence and his absence were equally dreaded by the Lord Lieutenant. It was, indeed, painful to be daily browbeaten by an enemy: but it was not less painful to know that an enemy was daily breathing calumny and evil counsel in the royal ear. Clarendon was overwhelmed by manifold vexations. He made a progress through the country, and found that he was everywhere treated by the Irish population with contempt. The Roman Catholic priests exhorted their congregations to withhold from him all marks of honour. The native gentry, instead of coming to pay their respects to him, remained at their houses. The native peasantry everywhere sang Celtic ballads in praise of Tyrconnel, who would, they doubted not, soon reappear to complete the humiliation of their oppressors.* The viceroy had The King scarcely returned to Dublin displeased from his unsatisfactory tour, rendon. when he received letters which informed him that he had incurred the King's serious displeasure. His Majesty, so these letters ran,-expected his servants not only to do what he commanded, but to do it from the heart, and with a cheerful countenance. The Lord Lieutenant had not, indeed, refused to cooperate in the reform of the army and of the civil administration: but his cooperation had been reluctant and perfunctory: his looks had betrayed his feelings; and everybody saw that he disapproved of the policy which he was employed to carry into effect. In great anguish of mind with Cla * Clarendon to Rochester, Sept. 23. and October 2. 1686; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690. † Clarendon to Rochester, October 6. 1686. he wrote to defend himself; but he [tion, but was left to learn the news was sternly told that his defence was from the Gazette. The real direction not satisfactory. He then, in the most of affairs had passed to the cabal which abject terms, declared that he would dined with Sunderland on Fridays. not attempt to justify himself; that he The cabinet met only to hear the deacquiesced in the royal judgment, be spatches from foreign courts read; nor it what it might; that he prostrated did those despatches contain anything himself in the dust; that he implored which was not known on the Royal pardon; that of all penitents he was Exchange; for all the English envoys the most sincere; that he should think had received orders to put into the it glorious to die in his Sovereign's official letters only the common talk of cause, but found it impossible to live antechambers, and to reserve importunder his Sovereign's displeasure. Nor ant secrets for private communications was this mere interested hypocrisy, which were addressed to James himbut, at least in part, unaffected slavish- self, to Sunderland, or to Petre.* Yet ness and poverty of spirit; for in con- the victorious faction was not content. fidential letters, not meant for the The King was assured by those whom royal eye, he bemoaned himself to his he most trusted that the obstinacy with family in the same strain. He was which the nation opposed his designs miserable he was crushed: the wrath was really to be imputed to Rochester. of the King was insupportable: if that How could the people believe that wrath could not be mitigated, life their Sovereign was unalterably rewould not be worth having.* The solved to persevere in the course on poor man's terror increased when he which he had entered, when they saw learned that it had been determined at at his right hand, ostensibly first in Whitehall to recall him, and to appoint, power and trust among his counsellors, as his successor, his rival and calum- a man who notoriously regarded that niator, Tyrconnel. Then for a time course with strong disapprobation? the prospect seemed to clear: the King Every step which had been taken with was in better humour; and during a the object of humbling the Church of few days Clarendon flattered himself England and of elevating the Church that his brother's intercession had pre- of Rome, had been opposed by the vailed, and that the crisis was passed. Treasurer. True it was that, when he had found opposition vain, he had gloomily submitted, nay, that he had sometimes even assisted in carrying into effect the very plans against which he had most earnestly contended. True it was that, though he disliked the Ecclesiastical Commission, he had consented to be a Commissioner. True it was that he had, while declaring that he could see nothing blamable in the conduct of the Bishop of London, voted sullenly and reluctantly for the sentence of suspension. But this was not enough. A prince, engaged in an enterprise so important and arduous as that on which James was bent, had a right to expect from his first minister, not unwilling and ungracious acquiescence, but zealous and strenuous cooperation. While such advice was daily given to James by those in whom by the In truth the crisis was only beginRochester ning. While Clarendon was attacked trying to lean on Rochester, Jesuitical Rochester was unable longer cabal. to support himself. As in Ireland the elder brother, though retaining the guard of honour, the sword of state, and the title of Excellency, had really been superseded by the Commander of the Forces, so in England, the younger brother, though holding the white staff, and walking, by virtue of his high office, before the greatest hereditary nobles, was fast sinking into a mere financial clerk. The Parliament was again prorogued to a distant day, in opposition to the Treasurer's known wishes. He was not even told that there was to be another proroga* Clarendon to the King and to Rochester, October 23. 1686. + Clarendon to Rochester, October 29, 30. 1686. Ibid. November 27. 1686. he reposed confidence, he received, by | and which, in an elderly man married the penny post, many anonymous let- to an agreeable young wife, is regarded ters filled with calumnies against the even by people of the world as disreLord Treasurer. This mode of attack putable. Lady Dorchester had returned had been contrived by Tyrconnel, and from Dublin, and was again the King's was in perfect harmony with every mistress. Her return was politically part of his infamous life.* of no importance. She had learned by The King hesitated. He seems, in- experience the folly of attempting to deed, to have really regarded his save her lover from the destruction to brother in law with personal kindness, which he was running headlong. She the effect of near affinity, of long and therefore suffered the Jesuits to guide familiar intercourse, and of many mu- his political conduct; and they, in retual good offices. It seemed probable turn, suffered her to wheedle him out of that, as long as Rochester continued to money. She was, however, only one of submit himself, though tardily and several abandoned women who at this with murmurs, to the royal pleasure, time shared, with his beloved Church, he would continue to be in name prime the dominion over his mind.* He minister. Sunderland, therefore, with seems to have determined to make some exquisite cunning, suggested to his amends for neglecting the welfare of master the propriety of asking the only his own soul by taking care of the souls proof of obedience which it was quite of others. He set himself, therefore, to certain that Rochester never would labour, with real good will, but with give. At present, - such was the lan- the good will of a coarse, stern, and guage of the artful Secretary,- it was arbitrary mind, for the conversion of impossible to consult with the first of his kinsman. Every audience which the King's servants respecting the ob- the Treasurer obtained was spent in ject nearest to the King's heart. It arguments about the authority of the was lamentable to think that religious Church and the worship of images. prejudices should, at such a conjunc- Rochester was firmly resolved not to ture, deprive the government of such abjure his religion: but he had no valuable assistance. Perhaps those scruple about employing in self-defence prejudices might not prove insurmount-artifices as discreditable as those which able. Then the deceiver whispered had been used against him. He affected that, to his knowledge, Rochester had of late had some misgivings about the points in dispute between the Protestants and Catholics. This was enough. Attempts The King eagerly caught at the of James hint. He began to flatter himRochester. self that he might at once escape from the disagreeable necessity of removing a friend, and secure an able coadjutor for the great work which was in progress. He was also elated by the hope that he might have the merit and the glory of saving a fellow creature from perdition. He seems, indeed, about this time, to have been seized with an unusually violent fit of zeal for his religion; and this is the more remarkable, because he had just relapsed, after a short interval of selfrestraint, into debauchery which all Christian divines condemn as sinful, to convert * Sheridan MS. ↑ Life of James the Second, ii. 100. to speak like a man whose mind was not made up, professed himself desirous to be enlightened if he was in error, borrowed Popish books, and listened with civility to Popish divines. He had several interviews with Leyburn, the Vicar Apostolic, with Godden, the chaplain and almoner of the Queen Dowager, and with Bonaventure Giffard, a theologian trained to polemics in the schools of Douay. It was agreed that there should be a formal disputation between these doctors and some Protestant clergymen. The King told Rochester to choose any ministers of the Established Church, with two exceptions. The proscribed persons were Tillotson and Stillingfleet. Tillotson, the most popular preacher of that age, and in manners the most inoffensive of men, had been much connected with * Barillon, Sept. 13. 1686; Bonrepaux, June 4. 1687. |