History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution - Volume 2 by James MacCaffrey (free e books to read online txt) 📖

op. cit., i., cxvii. /English Historical Review/, i., ii.
Lecky, /Ireland in the Eighteenth Century/, 61 sqq.

[52] Carte, /Life of Ormond/, i., 260-1.

[53] Lecky, op. cit., 96 sqq.

[54] /Spicil. Ossor./, ii., 2-8.

[55] Id., i., 262-8.

[56] Bagwell, op. cit., ii., 88-9.

[57] Bagwell, op. cit., 115.

[58] Cf. Aiazzi, /Nunziatura in Irlanda di Mgr. G. B. Rinuccini/, 1844
(tr. Hutton, 1873). /Ninth Report Hist. MSS. Commission/, App.
ii., 1884.

[59] Cox, /Hib. Anglicana/, app. 43.

[60] Murphy, /Cromwell in Ireland/, 1883. /The History of the War in
Ireland, 1641-53/ (ed. Hogan, S.J., 1873).

[61] On Cromwell's /Massacres/, cf. /Nineteenth Century and After/
(Sept., 1912; Dec., 1912; April, 1913). /Irish Eccl. Record/
(June, 1913; Nov., 1913).

[62] /Spicil. Ossor./, ii., 38-43.

[63] Id., ii., 85 sqq.

[64] /Declaration of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, etc., 1641/.

[65] Cf. Dunlop, op. cit. (the official documents are given in this
book). Prendergast, /The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland/, 2nd
ed., 312 sqq. (References to P. R. Doc.). Moran, /Spicil Ossor./,
i., 374-428.

[66] Williams, /The Regicides in Ireland/ (/Irish. Ecc. Record/, Aug.,
1914).

[67] Prendergast, op. cit., 232 sqq.

[68] On the Cromwellian Plantation, cf. Dunlop, op. cit. (Introduction
and Documents). Prendergast, /Cromwellian Settlement/.

[69] Burke, /Irish Priests in the Penal Times/, 11-12.

[70] /Irish Eccl. Record/, 1st ser., vi., 501-15.

[71] Walsh, /History and Vindication of the loyal Formulary or Irish
Remonstrance, etc., 1672/.

[72] Cox, /A Letter/, etc., 11.

[73] Cox, op. cit., 14.

[74] For an account of the Ven. Oliver Plunket, cf. Moran, /Memoir of
the Ven. Oliver Plunket/, 1861. Id., /Life of Oliver Plunket/,
1895. Burke, op. cit., 77 sqq.

[75] Moran, /Spicil. Ossor./, ii., 289 sqq.; iii., 109 sqq.

[76] On this Parliament, cf. Davis, /The Patriot Parliament of 1689/,
1893. Dunbar Ingram, /Two Chapters of Irish History/, 1888. King,
/State of the Protestants of Ireland, 1691/. Leslie, /An Answer to
a Book entitled the State of the Protestants of Ireland under the
late King James, 1691/. Murphy, /Two Irish Parliaments/ (/Record
of the Maynooth Union/, 1907-8).

[77] For an account of the war, cf. /A Jacobite Narrative of the War
in Ireland/ (ed. Gilbert, 1892). /Macariae Excidium or the
Destruction of Cyprus/ (ed. Crofton Croker, 1841, O'Callaghan,
1850). Boulger, /The Battle of the Boyne/, etc., 1911 (based on
the French military reports).


CHAPTER XI

THE PENAL LAWS

Burke, /The Irish Priests in the Penal Times (1660-1760)/, 1914 (a
valuable book, based on the State Papers preserved in the Record
Office, the Bodleian Library and the British Museum). Curry, /An
Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland from
the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Settlement of King William
III./, 2 vols., 1786. Klopp, /Der Fall des Hauses Stuart u.s.w./,
14 Bde., 1875-88. Madden, /Historical Notice of the Penal Laws
against Roman Catholics/, 1865. Lecky, /History of Ireland in the
Eighteenth Century/, 5 vols. (new imp., 1913). Parnell, /History
of the Penal Laws/, 1808. Id., /An Historical Apology for the
Irish Catholics/, 1807. /Works and Correspondence of Edmund
Burke/, 8 vols., 1851. Butler, /Historical Memoirs of English,
Irish, and Scotch Catholics/, 4 vols., 1819. Scully, /The Penal
Laws/, 1812. Murray, /Revolutionary Ireland and its Settlement/,
1911.

When the Irish leaders entered into correspondence with General Ginkle they were by no means reduced to the last extremity. The situation of the besiegers was rendered difficult by the approach of winter, and there was a danger that the city might be relieved at any moment by the appearance of a French fleet in the Shannon. Hence to avoid the risks attendant on the prolongation of the siege and to set free his troops for service on the Continent, where their presence was required so urgently, General Ginkle was willing to make many concessions. Before the battle of Aughrim William had offered to grant the Catholics the free exercise of their religion, half the churches in the kingdom, and the moiety of the ecclesiastical revenues.[1] But the position of both parties had changed considerably since then, and Sarsfield and his companions could hardly expect so favourable terms. They insisted, however, on toleration, and though the first clause of the treaty dealing expressly with that subject was drafted badly, they certainly expected they had secured it. In addition to the military articles the Peace of Limerick contained thirteen articles, the most important of which were the first, and the ninth. By these it was provided that the Catholics should enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as is consistent with the laws of Ireland, and as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II.; that their Majesties as soon as their affairs should permit them to summon a Parliament would endeavour to procure for Irish Catholics "such further security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturbance upon account of their religion;" and that the oath to be administered to Catholics should be the simple oath of allegiance to William and Mary. "Those who signed it [the Treaty]," writes Lecky, "undertook that the Catholics of Ireland should not be in a worse position, in respect to the exercise of their religion, than they had been in during the reign of Charles II., and they also undertook that the influence of the government should be promptly exerted to obtain such an amelioration of their condition as would secure them from the possibility of disturbance. Construed in its plain and natural sense, interpreted as every treaty should be by men of honour, the Treaty of Limerick amounted to no less than this."[2] The Treaty was ratified by the sovereigns in April 1692, and its contents were communicated to William's Catholic ally, the Emperor Leopold I. (1657-1705) as a proof that the campaign in Ireland was not a campaign directed against the Catholic religion.

The king was, therefore, pledged to carry out the agreement, and by means of the royal veto and the control exercised by the English privy council he could have done so notwithstanding the bigoted fanaticism of the Protestant minority in Ireland. Nor can it be said that the conduct of the Irish Catholics afforded any pretext for denying them the rights to which they were entitled. Once their military leaders and the best of their soldiers had passed into the service of France there was little danger of a Catholic rebellion, and during the years between 1692 and 1760, even at times when the Jacobite forces created serious troubles in Scotland and England, the historian will search in vain for any evidence of an Irish conspiracy in favour of the exiled Stuarts. The penal laws were due solely to the desire of the Protestant minority to wreak a terrible vengeance on their Catholic countrymen, to get possession of their estates, to drive them out of public life, by excluding them from the learned professions and from all civil and military offices, to reduce them to a condition of permanent inferiority by depriving them of all means of education at home and abroad, to uproot their religion by banishing the bishops and clergy, both regular and secular, and in a word to reduce them to the same position as the native population of the English plantations in the West Indies.

For some years, however, after the overthrow of the Irish forces, it was deemed imprudent by the king and his advisers to give the Irish Protestants a free hand. Louis XIV. was a dangerous opponent, and till the issue of the great European contest was decided it was necessary to move with caution at home. Besides, Leopold I., William's faithful ally, could not afford, even from the point of view of politics, to look on as a disinterested spectator at a terrible persecution of his own co-religionists in Ireland. But once the fall of Namur (1695) had made it clear that Louis XIV. was not destined to become the dictator of Europe, and above all once the Peace of Ryswick (1697) had set William free from a very embarrassing alliance, the Protestant officials in Ireland were allowed a free hand. Parliament was convoked to meet in 1692. The Earl of Sydney was sent over as Lord Lieutenant, and in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Limerick Parliament should have confirmed the articles. But men like Dopping, the Protestant Bishop of Meath, took care to inflame passion and bigotry by declaring that no faith should be kept with heretics, and when Parliament met it was in no mood to make any concessions. The few Catholic members who presented themselves were called upon to subscribe a Declaration against Transubstantiation prescribed by the English Parliament, but which had no binding force in Ireland. Having in this way excluded all Catholics from Parliament, an exclusion which lasted from 1692 till the days of the Union, the Houses passed a bill recognising the new sovereigns, and another for encouraging foreign Protestants to settle in Ireland,[3] but they refused absolutely to confirm the Treaty of Limerick. After Parliament had been prorogued the privy council endeavoured to induce the Earl of Sydney to issue a proclamation ordering the bishops and clergy to depart from the kingdom, but under pretence of consulting the authorities in England he succeeded in eluding the would-be-persecutors, who were obliged to content themselves with indirect methods of striking at the priests, until Sydney was recalled, and until Lord Capel, a man after their own heart, arrived as Lord Lieutenant in 1695.

In August of that year Parliament met once more. In his opening speech the Lord Lieutenant struck a note likely to win the approval of his audience. "My Lords and Gentlemen," he said, "I must inform you that the Lords Justices of England have, with great application and dispatch, considered and re-transmitted all the bills sent to them; that some of these bills have more effectually provided for your future security than hath ever hitherto been done; and, in my opinion, the want of such laws has been one of the greatest causes of your past miseries; and it will be your fault, as well as misfortune, if you neglect to lay hold of the opportunity, now put into your hands by your great and gracious king, of making such a lasting settlement, that it may never more be in the power of your enemies to bring the like calamities again upon you, or to put England to that vast expense of blood and treasure it hath so often been at for securing this kingdom to the crown of England."[4] The measures taken to secure the Protestant settlement will repay study. It was enacted that no parent should send his children beyond seas for education under penalty, both for the sender and the person sent, of being disqualified "to sue, bring, or prosecute any action, bill, plaint, or information in course of law, or to prosecute any suit in a court of equity, or to be guardian or executor, or administrator to any person, or capable of any legacy, or deed of gift, or