The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (390 page)

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Argyle and Hamilton, being seized with an apprehension real or pretended, that the earl of Crawfurd and others meant to assassinate them, left the parliament suddenly, and retired into the country: But upon invitation and assurances, returned in a few days. This event, which had neither cause nor effect that was visible, nor purpose, nor consequence, was commonly denominated the
incident.
But though the incident had no effect in Scotland; what was not expected, it was attended with consequences in England. The English parliament, which was now assembled, being willing to awaken the

people’s tenderness by exciting their fears, immediately took the October 20.

alarm; as if the malignants, so they called the king’s party, had laid a plot at once to murder them and all the godly in both kingdoms. They applied, therefore, to Essex, whom the king had left general in the south of England; and he ordered a guard to attend them.
y

But while the king was employed in pacifying the commotions in Scotland, and was preparing to return to England, in order to apply himself to the same salutary work in that kingdom; he received intelligence of a dangerous rebellion broken out in Ireland, with circumstances of the utmost horror, bloodshed, and devastation. On every side, this unfortunate prince was pursued with murmurs, discontent, faction, and civil wars; and the fire, from all quarters, even by the most independent accidents, at once blazed up about him.

The great plan of James, in the administration of Ireland, continued by Charles, was, by justice and peace to reconcile that turbulent people to the authority of laws, and, introducing art and industry among them, to cure them of that sloth and barbarism, to which they had ever been subject. In order to serve both these purposes, and at the same time secure the dominion of Ireland to the English crown, great colonies of British had been carried over, and, being intermixed with the Irish, had every where introduced a new face of things into that country. During a peace of near forty years, the inveterate quarrels between the nations seemed, in a great measure, to be obliterated; and though much of the landed property, forfeited by rebellion, had been conferred on the new planters, a more than equal return had been made, by their instructing the natives in tillage, building, manufactures, and all the civilized arts of

life.z
This had been the course of things during the successive administrations of Chichester, Grandison, Falkland, and, above all, of Strafford. Under the government of this latter nobleman, the pacific plans, now come to greater maturity, and forwarded by his vigour and industry, seemed to have operated with full success, and to have bestowed, at last, on that savage country, the face of a European settlement.

After Strafford fell a victim to popular rage, the humours excited in Ireland by that great event, could not suddenly be composed, but continued to produce the greatest innovations in the government.

The British protestants, transplanted into Ireland, having, every moment before their eyes, all the horrors of popery, had naturally been carried into the opposite extreme, and had universally adopted the highest principles and practices of the puritans.

Monarchy, as well as the hierarchy, was become odious to them; and every method of limiting the authority of the crown, and detaching themselves from the king of PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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England, was greedily adopted and pursued. They considered not, that, as they scarcely-formed the sixth part of the people, and were secretly obnoxious to the ancient inhabitants; their only method of supporting themselves was by maintaining royal authority, and preserving a great dependance on their mother-country. The English commons, likewise, in their furious prosecution of Strafford, had overlooked the most obvious consequences; and, while they imputed to him, as a crime, every discretionary act of authority, they despoiled all succeeding governors of that power, by which alone the Irish could be retained in subjection. And so strong was the current for popular government in all the three kingdoms, that the most established maxims of policy were every where abandoned, in order to gratify this ruling passion.

Charles, unable to resist, had been obliged to yield to the Irish, as to the Scottish and English parliaments; and found too, that their encroachments still rose in proportion to his concessions. Those subsidies, which themselves had voted, they reduced, by a subsequent vote, to a fourth part: The court of high commission was determined to be a grievance: Martial law abolished: The jurisdiction of the council annihilated: Proclamations and acts of state declared of no authority: Every order or institution, which depended on monarchy, was invaded; and the prince was despoiled of all his prerogative, without the least pretext of any violence or illegality in his administration.

The standing army of Ireland was usually about 3000 men; but in order to assist the king in suppressing the Scottish covenanters, Strafford had raised 8000 more, and had incorporated with them a thousand men, drawn from the old army; a necessary expedient for bestowing order and discipline on the new levied soldiers. The private men in this army were all catholics; but the officers, both commission and non-commission, were protestants, and could entirely be depended on by Charles. The English commons entertained the greatest apprehensions on account of this army; and never ceased soliciting the king, till he agreed to break it: Nor would they consent to any proposal for augmenting the standing army to 5000 men; a number which the king deemed necessary for retaining Ireland in obedience.

Charles, thinking it dangerous, that 8000 men accustomed to idleness, and trained to the use of arms, should be dispersed among a nation so turbulent and unsettled, agreed with the Spanish ambassador to have them transported into Flanders, and enlisted in his master’s service. The English commons, pretending apprehensions, lest regular bodies of troops, disciplined in the Low Countries, should prove still more dangerous, showed some aversion to this expedient; and the king reduced his allowance to 4000

men. But when the Spaniards had hired ships for transporting these troops, and the men were ready to embark; the commons, willing to show their power, and not displeased with an opportunity of curbing and affronting the king, prohibited every one from furnishing vessels for that service. And thus the project, formed by Charles, of freeing the country from these men, was unfortunately disappointed.
a

The old Irish remarked all these false steps of the English, and resolved to take advantage of them. Tho’ their animosity against that nation, for want of an occasion to exert itself, seemed to be extinguished, it was only composed into a temporary and deceitful tranquillity.
b
Their interests, both with regard to
property
and
religion,
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secretly stimulated them to a revolt. No individual of any sept, according to the ancient customs, had the property of any particular estate; but as the whole sept had a title to a whole territory, they ignorantly preferred this barbarous community before the more secure and narrower possessions assigned them by the English. An indulgence, amounting almost to a toleration, had been given to the catholic religion: But so long as the churches and the ecclesiastical revenues were kept from the priests, and they were obliged to endure the neighbourhood of profane heretics, being themselves discontented, they continually endeavoured to retard any cordial reconciliation between the English and the Irish nations.

There was a gentleman called Roger More, who, though of a

Conspiracy in Ireland.

narrow fortune, was descended from an ancient Irish family, and was much celebrated among his countrymen for valour and capacity. This man first formed the project of expelling the English, and asserting the independency of his native country.
c
He secretly went from chieftain to chieftain, and rouzed up every latent principle of discontent. He maintained a close correspondence with lord Maguire and Sir Phelim ONeale, the most powerful of the old Irish. By conversation, by letters, by his emissaries, he represented to his countrymen the motives of a revolt.

He observed to them, that, by the rebellion of the Scots, and factions of the English, the king’s authority in Britain was reduced to so low a condition, that he never could exert himself with any vigour, in maintaining the English dominion over Ireland; that the catholics, in the Irish house of commons, assisted by the protestants, had so diminished the royal prerogative and the power of the lieutenant, as would much facilitate the conducting, to its desired effect, any conspiracy or combination, which could be formed; that the Scots having so successfully thrown off dependence on the crown of England, and assumed the government into their own hands, had set an example to the Irish, who had so much greater oppressions to complain of; that the English planters, who had expelled them their possessions, suppressed their religion, and bereaved them of their liberties, were but a handful in comparison of the natives; that they lived in the most supine security, interspersed with their numerous enemies, trusting to the protection of a small army, which was itself scattered in inconsiderable divisions throughout the whole kingdom; that a great body of men, disciplined by the government, were now thrown loose, and were ready for any daring or desperate enterprize; that though the catholics had hitherto enjoyed, in some tolerable measure, the exercise of their religion, from the moderation of their indulgent prince, they must henceforth expect, that the government will be conducted by other maxims and other principles; that the puritanical parliament, having at length subdued their sovereign, would no doubt, as soon as they had consolidated their authority, extend their ambitious enterprizes to Ireland, and make the catholics in that kingdom feel the same furious persecution, to which their brethren in England were at present exposed; and that a revolt in the Irish, tending only to vindicate their native liberty against the violence of foreign invaders, could never, at any time, be deemed rebellion; much less during the present confusions, when their prince was, in a manner, a prisoner, and obedience must be paid, not to him, but to those who had traiterously usurped his lawful authority.
d

By these considerations, More engaged all the heads of the native Irish into the conspiracy. The English of the pale, as they were called, or the old English planters, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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being all catholics, it was hoped, would afterwards join the party, which restored their religion to its ancient splendor and authority. The intention was, that Sir Phelim ONeale and the other conspirators should begin an insurrection on one day, throughout the provinces, and should attack all the English settlements; and that, on the same day, lord Maguire and Roger More should surprize the castle of Dublin. The commencement of the revolt was fixed on the approach of winter; that there might be more difficulty in transporting forces from England. Succours to themselves and supplies of arms they expected from France, in consequence of a promise made them by cardinal Richelieu. And many Irish officers, who served in the Spanish troops, had engaged to join them, as soon as they saw an insurrection entered upon by their catholic brethren. News, which every day arrived from England, of the fury expressed by the commons against all papists, struck fresh terror into the Irish nation, and both stimulated the conspirators to execute their fatal purpose, and gave them assured hopes of the concurrence of all their countrymen.
e

Such propensity to a revolt was discovered in all the Irish, that it was deemed unnecessary, as it was dangerous, to entrust the secret to many hands; and the appointed day drew nigh, nor had any discovery been yet made to the government.

The king, indeed, had received information from his ambassadors, that something was in agitation among the Irish in foreign parts; but though he gave warning to the administration in Ireland, the intelligence was entirely neglected.
f
Secret rumours, likewise, were heard of some approaching conspiracy; but no attention was paid to them. The earl of Leicester, whom the king had appointed lieutenant, remained in London. The two justices, Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlace, were men of small abilities; and, by an inconvenience, common to all factious times, owed their advancement to nothing but their zeal for the party, by whom every thing was now governed. Tranquil from their ignorance and inexperience, these men indulged themselves in the most profound repose, on the very brink of destruction.

But they were awakened from their security, on the very day before that which was appointed for the commencement of hostilities. The castle of Dublin, by which the capital was commanded, contained arms for 10,000 men, with thirty-five pieces of cannon, and a proportionable quantity of ammunition: Yet was this important place guarded, and that too without any care, by no greater force than fifty men. Maguire and More were already in town with a numerous band of their partizans: Others were expected that night: And, next morning, they were to enter upon, what they esteemed the easiest of all enterprizes, the surprizal of the castle. Oconolly, an Irishman, but a

protestant, betrayed the conspiracy to Parsons.g
The justices and council fled immediately for safety, into the castle, and re–inforced the guards. The alarm was conveyed to the city, and all the protestants prepared for defence. More escaped: Maguire was taken; and Mahone, one of the conspirators, being likewise seized, first discovered to the justices, the project of a general insurrection, and redoubled the apprehensions, which already were universally diffused throughout Dublin.
h