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a great display of power, promptitude, | and hunger: but enough survived to and energy, in a quarter where the fill the streets of all the cities of Europe most splendid achievements could pro- with lean and squalid beggars, who duce nothing more than an illumination had once been thriving farmers and and a Te Deum. A French army shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of under the command of Marshal Duras destruction began. The flames went had invaded the Palatinate and some of up from every marketplace, every hamthe neighbouring principalities. But let, every parish church, every country this expedition, though it had been seat, within the devoted provinces. The completely successful, and though the fields where the corn had been sown skill and vigour with which it had been were ploughed up. The orchards were conducted had excited general admira- hewn down. No promise of a harvest tion, could not perceptibly affect the was left on the fertile plains near what event of the tremendous struggle which had once been Frankenthal. Not a was approaching. France would soon vine, not an almond tree, was to be be attacked on every side. It would seen on the slopes of the sunny hills be impossible for Duras long to retain round what had once been Heidelberg. possession of the provinces which he No respect was shown to palaces, to had surprised and overrun. An atro- temples, to monasteries, to infirmaries, cious thought rose in the mind of to beautiful works of art, to monuments Louvois, who, in military affairs, had of the illustrious dead. The farfamed the chief sway at Versailles. He was castle of the Elector Palatine was turned a man distinguished by zeal for what into a heap of ruins. The adjoining he thought the public interests, by ca- hospital was sacked. The provisions, pacity, and by knowledge of all that the medicines, the pallets on which the related to the administration of war, sick lay were destroyed. The very but of a savage and obdurate nature. stones of which Manheim had been If the cities of the Palatinate could not built were flung into the Rhine. The be retained, they might be destroyed. magnificent Cathedral of Spires perIf the soil of the Palatinate was not ished, and with it the marble sepulchres to furnish supplies to the French, it of eight Cæsars. The coffins were might be so wasted that it would at broken open. The ashes were scattered least furnish no supplies to the Ger- to the winds.* Treves, with its fair mans. The ironhearted statesman sub- bridge, its Roman baths and amphimitted his plan, probably with much theatre, its venerable churches, conmanagement and with some disguise, vents, and colleges, was doomed to the to Lewis; and Lewis, in an evil hour same fate. But, before this last crime for his fame, assented. Duras received had been perpetrated, Lewis was reorders to turn one of the fairest regions called to a better mind by the execraof Europe into a wilderness. Fifteen tions of all the neighbouring nations, years had elapsed since Turenne had by the silence and confusion of his ravaged part of that fine country. But flatterers, and by the expostulations of the ravages committed by Turenne, his wife. He had been more than two though they have left a deep stain on years secretly married to Frances de his glory, were mere sport in comparison Maintenon, the governess of his natural with the horrors of this second devas- children. It would be hard to name tation. The French commander an- any woman who, with so little romance nounced to near half a million of in her temper, has had so much in her human beings that he granted them three days of grace, and that, within that time, they must shift for themselves. Soon the roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying from their homes. Many died of cold

*For the history of the devastation of the

Palatinate, see the Memoirs of La Fare, Dangeau, Madame de la Fayette, Villars, and March and April 1689. The pamphlets and Saint Simon, and the Monthly Mercuries for broadsides are too numerous to quote. One broadside, entitled "A true Account of the in the Palatinate in January and February barbarous Cruelties committed by the French last," is perhaps the most remarkable.

life. Her early years had been passed | cry of vengeance rose on every side. in poverty and obscurity. Her first Whatever scruple either branch of the husband had supported himself by House of Austria might have felt about writing burlesque farces and poems. coalescing with Protestants was comWhen she attracted the notice of her pletely removed. It was in vain that sovereign, she could no longer boast of Lewis accused the Emperor and the youth or beauty: but she possessed Catholic King of having betrayed the in an extraordinary degree those more cause of the Church; of having allied lasting charms, which men of sense, themselves with an usurper who was whose passions age has tamed, and the avowed champion of the great whose life is a life of business and care, schism; of having been accessory to prize most highly in a female com- the foul wrong done to a lawful sovepanion. Her character was such as has reign who was guilty of no crime but been well compared to that soft green zeal for the true religion. It was in on which the eye, wearied by warm vain that James sent to Vienna and tints and glaring lights, reposes with Madrid piteous letters, in which he pleasure. A just understanding; an recounted his misfortunes, and implored inexhaustible yet never redundant flow the assistance of his brother kings, his of rational, gentle, and sprightly con- brethren also in the faith, against the versation; a temper of which the se- unnatural children and the rebellious renity was never for a moment ruffled; subjects who had driven him into exile. a tact which surpassed the tact of her There was little difficulty in framing a sex as much as the tact of her sex sur- plausible answer both to the reproaches passes the tact of ours; such were the of Lewis and to the supplications of qualities which made the widow of a James. Leopold and Charles declared buffoon first the confidential friend, and that they had not, even for purposes of then the spouse, of the proudest and just selfdefence, leagued themselves most powerful of European kings. It with heretics, till their enemy had, for was said that Lewis had been with purposes of unjust aggression, leagued difficulty prevented by the arguments himself with Mahometans. Nor was this and vehement entreaties of Louvois the worst. The French King, not confrom declaring her Queen of France. tent with assisting the Moslem against It is certain that she regarded Louvois the Christians, was himself treating as her enemy. Her hatred of him, co- Christians with a barbarity which operating perhaps with better feelings, would have shocked the very Moslem. induced her to plead the cause of the His infidel allies, to do them justice, unhappy people of the Rhine. She had not perpetrated on the Danube appealed to those sentiments of com- such outrages against the edifices and passion which, though weakened by the members of the Holy Catholic many corrupting influences, were not Church as he who called himself the altogether extinct in her husband's eldest son of that Church was perpemind, and to those sentiments of re-trating on the Rhine. On these grounds, ligion which had too often impelled the princes to whom James had aphim to cruelty, but which, on the present occasion, were on the side of humanity. He relented; and Treves was spared.* In truth he could hardly fail to perceive that he had committed a great error. The devastation of the Palatinate, while it had not in any sensible degree lessened the power of his enemies, had inflamed their animosity, and had furnished them with inexhaustible matter for invective. The

Memoirs of Saint Simon.

pealed replied by appealing, with many professions of good will and compassion, to himself. He was surely too just to blame them for thinking that it was their first duty to defend their own people against such outrages as had turned the Palatinate into a desert, or for calling in the aid of Protestants against an enemy who had not scrupled to call in the aid of Turks.*

* I will quote a few lines from Leopold's Letter to James: "Nunc autem quo loco res nostræ sint, ut Serenitati vestræ auxilium

clared

against

War de- part of the spring, the powers hostile to France were gatherFrance. ing their strength for a great effort, and were in constant communication with one another. As the season for military operations approached, the solemn appeals of injured nations to the God of battles came forth in rapid succession. The manifesto of the Germanic body appeared in February; that of the States General in March; that of the House of Brandenburg in April; and that of Spain in May.*

During the winter and the earlier address. John Hampden, the most ardent Whig among them, was put into the chair; and he produced a composition too long, too rhetorical, and too vituperative to suit the lips of the Speaker or the ears of the King. Invectives against Lewis might perhaps, in the temper in which the House then was, have passed without censure, if they had not been accompanied by severe reflections on the character and administration of Charles the Second, whose memory, in spite of all his faults, was affectionately cherished by the Here, as soon as the ceremony of the Tories. There were some very intellicoronation was over, the House of Com-gible allusions to Charles's dealings with mons determined to take into consideration the late proceedings of the French king. In the debate, that hatred of the powerful, unscrupulous and imperious Lewis, which had, during twenty years of vassalage, been festering in the hearts of Englishmen, broke violently forth. He was called the most Christian Turk, the most Christian ravager of Christendom, the most Christian barbarian who had perpetrated on Christians outrages of which his infidel allies would have been ashamed. A committee, consisting chiefly of ardent Whigs, was appointed to prepare an

præstari possit a nobis, qui non Turcico tantum bello impliciti, sed insuper etiam crudelissimo et iniquissimo a Gallis, rerum suarum, ut putabant, in Anglia securis, contra datam fidem impediti sumus, ipsimet Serenitati vestræ judicandum relinquimus. Galli non tantum in nostrum et totius Christianæ orbis perniciem fœdifraga arma cum juratis Sanctæ Crucis hostibus sociare fas sibi ducunt; sed etiam in imperio, perfidiam perfidia cumu

lando, urbes deditione occupatas contra datam fidem immensis tributis exhaurire, exhaustas diripere, direptas funditus exscindere aut flammis delere, Palatia Principum ab omni antiquitate inter sævissima bellorum incendia intacta servata exurere, templa spoliare, dedititios in servitutem more apud barbaros usitato abducere, denique pas-im, imprimis

vero etiam in Catholicorum ditionibus, alia

horrenda, et ipsam Turcorum tyrannidem superantia immanitatis et sævitæ exempla edere pro ludo habent."

*See the London Gazettes of Feb. 25. March 11. April 22. May 2. and the Monthly Mercuries. Some of the Declarations will be found in Dumont's Corps Universel Diplomatique.

+ Commons' Journals, April 15, 16. 1689. Oldmixon.

the Court of Versailles, and to the foreign woman whom that Court had sent to lie like a snake in his bosom. The House was with good reason dissatisfied.

The address was recommitted, and, having been made more concise, and less declamatory and acrimonious, was approved and presented.* William's attention was called to the wrongs which France had done to him and to his kingdom; and he was assured that, whenever he should resort to arms for the redress of those wrongs, he should be heartily supported by his people. He thanked the Commons warmly. Ambition, he said, should never induce him to draw the sword: but he had no choice: France had already attacked England; and it was necessary to exercise the right of selfdefence. A few days later war was proclaimed.†

Of the grounds of quarrel alleged by the Commons in their address, and by the King in his manifesto, the most serious was the interference of Lewis in the affairs of Ireland. In that country great events had, during several months, followed one another in rapid succession. Of those events it is now time to relate the history, a history dark with crime and sorrow, yet full of interest and in

struction.

* Commons' Journals, April 19. 24. 26. 1689.

The declaration is dated on the 7th of May, but was not published in the London Gazette till the 13th.

CHAPTER XII.

WILLIAM had assumed, together with | religion; and this merit was thought

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The civil

power in the hands of the Roman

sufficient to wash out even the stain of his Saxon extraction. He soon proved himself worthy of the confidence of his patrons. On the bench of justice he declared that there was not one heretic in forty thousand who was not a villain. He often, after hearing a cause in which the interests of his Church were concerned, postponed his decision, for the purpose, as he avowed, of consulting his spiritual director, a Spanish priest, well read doubtless in Escobar.* Thomas Nugent, a Roman Catholic who had never distinguished himself at the bar except by his brogue and his blunders, was Chief Justice of the King's Bench.t Stephen Rice, a Roman Catholic, whose abilities and learning were not disputed even by the enemies of his nation and religion, but whose known hostility to the Act of Settlement excited the most painful apprehensions in the minds of all who held property under that Act, was Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Richard Nagle, an acute and well read lawyer, who had been educated in a

In fact, however, the Revolution found Ireland emancipated from the dominion of the English colony. As early as the year 1686, James Catholics. had determined to make that island a place of arms which might overawe Great Britain, and a place of refuge where, if any disaster happened in Great Britain, the members of his Church might find refuge. With this view he had exerted all his power for the purpose of inverting the relation between the conquerors and the aboriginal population. The execution of his design he had entrusted, in spite of the remonstrances of his English counsel-Jesuit lors, to the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel. In the autumn of 1688, the process was complete. The highest offices in the state, in the army, and in the Courts of Justice, were, with scarcely an exception, filled by Papists. A pettifogger named Alexander Fitton, who had been detected in forgery, who had been fined for misconduct by the House of Lords at Westminster, who had been many years in prison, and who was equally deficient in legal knowledge and in the natural good sense and acuteness by which the want of legal knowledge has sometimes been supplied, was Lord Chancellor. His single merit was that he had apostatised from the Protestant

*The general opinion of the English on this subject is clearly expressed in a little tract entitled "Aphorisms relating to the Kingdom of Ireland," which appeared during the vacancy of the throne.

college, and whose prejudices were such as might have been expected from his education, was Attorney Ge neral.§

Keating, a highly respectable Protestant, was still Chief Justice of the Common Pleas : but two Roman Catholic Judges sate with him. It ought to be added that one of those judges, Daly, was a man of sense, moderation, and integrity. The matters however which came before the Court of Common Pleas were not of great moment. Even

*King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, ii. 6. and iii. 3.

† Ibid., iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Rochester (June 1. 1686), calls Nugent" a very troublesome, impertinent creature." King, iii. 3.

§ Ibid., ii. 6., iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Ormond (Sept. 28. 1686), speaks highly of Nagle's knowledge and ability, but in the Diary (Jan. 31. 168) calls him": a covetous, ambitious man."

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juries, were selected in almost every instance from the caste which had till very recently been excluded from all public trust. It was affirmed that some of these important functionaries had been burned in the hand for theft. Others had been servants to Protestants; and the Protestants added, with bitter scorn, that it was fortunate for the country when this was the case; for that a menial who had cleaned the plate and rubbed down the horse of an English gentleman might pass for a civilised being, when compared with many of the native aristocracy whose lives had been spent in coshering or marauding. To such Sheriffs no colonist, even if he had been so strangely fortunate as to obtain a judgment, dared to entrust an execution.*

in the

of the

Catholics.

the King's Bench was at this time | Sheriffs, to whom belonged the execualmost deserted. The Court of Exche- tion of writs and the nomination of quer overflowed with business; for it was the only court at Dublin from which no writ of error lay to England, and consequently the only court in which the English could be oppressed and pillaged without hope of redress. Rice, it was said, had declared that they should have from him exactly what the law, construed with the utmost strictness, gave them, and nothing more. What, in his opinion, the law, strictly construed, gave them, they could easily infer from a saying which, before he became a judge, was often in his mouth. "I will drive," he used to say, a coach and six through the Act of Settlement." He now carried his threat daily into execution. The cry of all Protestants was that it mattered not what evidence they produced before him; that, when their titles were to be set aside, the rankest forgeries, the most infamous witnesses, were sure to have his countenance. To his court his countrymen came in multitudes with writs of ejectment and writs of trespass. In his court the government attacked at once the charters of all the cities and boroughs in Ireland; and he easily found pretexts for pronouncing all those charters forfeited. The municipal corporations, about a hundred in number, had been instituted to be the strongholds of the reformed religion and of the Eng-ment over their wrongs, or had crossed lish interest, and had consequently been regarded by the Irish Roman Catholics with an aversion which cannot be thought unnatural or unreasonable. Had those bodies been remodelled in a judicious and impartial manner, the irregularity of the proceedings by which so desirable a result had been attained might have been pardoned. But it soon appeared that one exclusive system had been swept away only to make room for another. The boroughs were subjected to the absolute authority of the Crown. Towns in which almost every householder was an English Protestant were placed under the government of Irish Roman Catholics. Many of the new Aldermen had never even seen the places over which they were appointed to bear rule. At the same time the

VOL. II.

Thus the civil power had, in the space of a few months, been The militransferred from the Saxon to tary power the Celtic population. The hands transfer of the military power Roman had been not less complete. The army, which, under the command of Ormond, had been the chief safeguard of the English ascendency, had ceased to exist. Whole regiments had been dissolved and reconstructed. Six thousand Protestant veterans, deprived of their bread, were brooding in retire

the sea and joined the standard of William. Their place was supplied by men who had long suffered oppression, and who, finding themselves suddenly transformed from slaves into masters, were impatient to pay back, with accumulated usury, the heavy debt of injuries and insults. The new soldiers, it was said, never passed an Englishman without cursing him and calling him by some foul name. They were the terror of every Protestant innkeeper; for, from the moment when they came under his roof, they ate and drank every thing: they paid for nothing;

*King, ii. 5. 1., iii. 3. 5.; A Short View of the Methods made use of in Ireland for the Subversion and Destruction of the Protestant

Religion and Interests, by a Clergyman lately escaped from thence, licensed Oct. 17. 1689.

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