The other measure deals with the question of Education, and is an attempt to solve to the satisfaction of Nonconformists, Catholics, Church-of-England people, and people of no church at all, whether there shall be any religious instruction in the schools for which all are taxed, and if so what shall be its nature and restrictions.

The tendency since 1870 has been steadily toward the method adopted by the United States, _i.e._, a severance of the civil community from all responsibility for religious teaching. And such is the tendency of the Bill now before the House of Lords. But it is believed that that conservative body will hesitate long before giving up such a cherished and time-encrusted principle as is involved.

So many Parliamentary reforms have been accomplished since the time they commenced in 1832, the time seems not far distant when there will be little more for Liberals to urge, or for Conservatives and the {196} House of Lords to obstruct. Monarchy is absolutely shorn of its dangers. The House of Commons, which is the actual ruling power of the Kingdom, is only the expression of the popular will.

We are accustomed to regard American freedom as the one supreme type.

But it is not. The popular will in England reaches the springs of Government more freely, more swiftly, and more imperiously, than it does in Republican America. It comes as a stern mandate, which must be obeyed on the instant. The King of England has less power than the President of the United States. The President can form a definite policy, select his own Ministry to carry it out, and to some extent have his own way for four years, whether the people like it or not.

The King cannot do this for a day. His Ministry cannot stand an hour, with a policy disapproved by the Commons. Not since Anne has a sovereign refused signature to an Act of Parliament. The Georges, and William IV., continued to exercise the power of dismissing Ministers at their {197} pleasure. But since Victoria, an unwritten law forbids it, and with this vanishes the last _remnant of a personal Government_.

The end long sought is attained.

The history of no other people affords such an ill.u.s.tration of a steadily progressive national development from seed to blossom, compelled by one persistent force. Freedom in England has not been wrought by cataclysm as in France, but has unfolded like a plant from a life within; impeded and arrested sometimes, but patiently biding its time, and then steadily and irresistibly pressing outward; one leaf after another freeing itself from the detaining force. Only a few more remain to be unclosed, and we shall behold the consummate flower of fourteen centuries;--centuries in which the most practical nation in the world has steadily pursued an _ideal_--the ideal of individual freedom subordinated only to the good of the whole!

{199}

A SHORT HISTORY OF IRELAND.

The history of prehistoric Ireland as told in ancient chronicles, easily proves the Irish to be the oldest nation in Europe, mingling their story with those not alone of Egypt, Troy, Greece, and Rome, but with that of Noah and the antediluvian world. Who was the Lady Caesair, who fled with her household to Ireland from the coming deluge after being refused shelter by Noah? and who Nemehd, the next colonist from the East, who heads the royal procession of one hundred and eighteen kings? and who, above all, is Milesius, who comes fresh from the lingual disaster at Shinar, the divinely appointed ruler, bringing with him his Egyptian wife Scota (Pharaoh's daughter) and her son Gael? and who that other son Heber, whose name was given to the original _lingua humana_ (the Hebrew), in honor of his efforts to prevent the blasphemous building of {200} Babel? For what do these shadowy figures stand, looming out of formless mist and chaos, and bestowing their names as imperishable memorials?--Scotia, Scots, Gaelic,--the word Gaelic in its true significance including Ireland and Scotland. Even the name Fenian takes on a venerable dignity when we learn that Fenius, the Scythian King, and father of Milesius, established the first university--a sort of school of languages--for the study of the seventy-two new varieties of human speech, appointing seventy-two wise men to master this new and troublesome branch of human knowledge! We are told that Heber and Heremon, the sons of Milesius, finally divided the island between them, and then, after the fashion of Romulus, Heber drove the factious Heremon over the sea into the land of the Picts, and reigned alone over the Scots in Ireland.

The sober truth seems to be that Ireland, at a very early period, was known to the Greeks as Ierne (from which comes Erin), and later to the Romans as Hibernia. At a very remote time it seems to have been colonized by Greek and other Eastern peoples, who left a deep impress upon the Celtic race {201} already inhabiting the island; but an impress upon the mind, not the life, of the Celts, for no vestige of Greek or other civilization, except in language and in ideals, has ever been found in Ireland. The only archaeological remains are cromlechs, which tell of a Druidical worship, and the round towers, belonging to a much later period, whose purpose is only conjectured.

Ireland's Aryan parentage is plainly indicated in its primitive social organization and system of laws. The family was the social unit, and the clan or _sept_ was only a larger family. Pre-Christian Ireland was divided into five septs: Munster, Connaught, Ulster, Leinster, and Meath. Each of these tribal divisions was governed by a chief or king, who was the head of the clan (or family). Among these, the chief-king, or _Ard Reagh_, resided at Tara in Meath, and received allegiance from the other four, with no jurisdiction, however, over the internal affairs of the other kingdoms. There was a perpetual strife between the clans. Outside of one's own tribal limits was the enemy's country.

The business of life was marauding and plundering, and the greatest hero {202} was he who could accomplish these things by deeds of the greatest daring.

All alike lived under a simple code of laws administered by a hereditary cla.s.s of jurists called Brehons. All offences were punishable by a system of fines called erics. The land was owned by the clan. Primogeniture was unknown, and the succession to the office of chief was determined by the clan, which had power to select any one within the family lines as Tanist or successor. This in "Brehon Law"

is known as the "law of Tanistry," and was closely interwoven with the later history of Ireland. But the cla.s.s more exalted than kings or brehons was the Bards. These were inspired singers, before whom Brehons quailed and kings meekly bowed their heads.

During the Roman occupation of Britain in which that country was Christianized, pagan Ireland heard nothing of the new evangel almost at her door. But in 432, after Britain had relapsed into paganism, St.

Patrick came into the darkened isle. If ever Pentecostal fires descended upon a nation it was in those sixty years during which one saintly man transformed a people from {203} brutish paganism to Christianity, and converted Ireland into the torch-bearer and nourisher of intellectual and spiritual life, so that as the gothic night was settling upon Europe, the centre of illumination seemed to be pa.s.sing from Rome to Ireland. Their missionaries were in Britain, Germany, Gaul; and students from Charlemagne's dominions, and the sons of kings from other lands, flocked to those stone monasteries, the remains of which are still to be seen upon the Irish coast, and which were then the acknowledged centres of learning in Europe. It was not until late in the ninth century that Ireland played a truly great part in European history. Rome became jealous of these fiery Christians; they had never worn her yoke, and concerned themselves little about the Pope. They had their own views about the shape of the tonsure, and also their own time for celebrating Easter, which was heretical and contumacious, and there began a struggle between Roman and Western Christianity. The pa.s.sion for art and letters which accompanied this spiritual birth makes this, indeed, a Golden Age. But the painting of missals, and study of Greek poetry and philosophy, {204} brought no change in the life of the people. It was for the learned, and a subject for just pride in retrospect. But the Christianized septs fought each other as before, and life was no less wild and disordered than it had always been.

In the eighth century the first viking appeared. It was then that a master-spirit arose, a man of the clan of O'Brien--_Brian Boru_. He drove out the Danes, usurped the place of Chief-King, and reigned in the Halls of Tara for a few years, then left his land to lapse once more into a chaos of fighting clans. But it was Dermot, the King of Leinster, whose fatal quarrel led to the subjugation of the land to England. The Irish epic, like that of Troy, has its Paris and Helen.

If that fierce old man had not fallen in love with the wife of the Lord of Brefny and carried her away, there might have been a different story to tell. The injured husband made war upon him, in which the Chief-King took part, and so hot was it made for the wife-stealer, that he offered to place Leinster at the feet of Henry II. in return for a.s.sistance. A party of adventurous barons, led by Strongbow, the Earl of Pembroke, {205} rushed to Dermot's rescue, defeated the Chief-King, drove the Danes out of Dublin, which they had founded, and took possession of that city themselves. Henry II. followed up the unauthorized raid of his barons with a well-equipped army, which he himself led, landing upon the Irish coast in 1171.

The conquest was soon complete, and Henry proceeded to organize his new territory, dividing it into counties, and setting up law-courts at Dublin, which was chosen as the Seat of his Lord-Deputy. The system of English law was established for the use of the Norman barons and English settlers, the natives being allowed to live under their old system of Brehon laws. Henry gave huge grants of land with feudal rights to his barons, then returned to his own troubled kingdom, leaving them to establish their claims and settle accounts with the Irish chieftains as best they could. The sword was the argument used on both sides, and a conflict between the brehon and feudal systems had commenced which still continues in Ireland. If Henry had expected to convert Irishmen into Englishmen, he had {206} miscalculated; it was the reverse which happened--the Norman-English were slowly but surely converted into Irishmen, and two elements were thereafter side by side, the Old Irish and the Anglo-Irish, who, however antagonistic, had always a certain community of interest which drew them together in great emergencies.

It is an easy task to describe a storm which has one centre. But how is one to describe the confused play of forces in a cyclone which has centres within centres? Irish chieftains at war with Irish chieftains, jealous Norman barons with Norman barons, all at the same time in deadly struggle with O'Neills, O'Connells, and O'Briens, who would never cease to fight for the territory which had been torn from them; and yet each and all of these ready in a desperate crisis to combine for the preservation of Ireland. In this chaos the territorial barons were the framework of the structure. The grants bestowed by Henry II.

had created, in fact, a group of small princ.i.p.alities. These were called Palatinates, and the power of the Lords Palatine was almost without limit. Each was a king in his own little {207} kingdom--could make war upon his neighbors, and recruit his army from his own va.s.sals.

It was the Geraldines who played the most historic part among these Palatines, the houses of Kildare and Desmond both being branches of this famous Norman family, which was always in high favor with the English sovereign, and always at war with the rival house of Ormond, the next most powerful Anglo-Norman family, descended from Thomas a Becket. These barons, or "Lords of the Pale," were, of course, supposed to be the intermediaries for the King's authority. But the Geraldines seem to have found plenty of time to build up their own fortunes, and as peace with their neighbors was sometimes more conducive to that pursuit, alliances with native chiefs and marriages with their daughters had in time made of them pretty good Irishmen.

But our main purpose is not to follow the fortunes of these picturesque and romantic robbers who considered all Ireland their legitimate prey, but rather those of the hapless native population, dispossessed of their homes, hiding in forests and mora.s.ses, and whom it was the policy of the English {208} Government to efface in their own country. These pages will tell of many efforts to compel loyalty, but not one effort to _win_ the loyalty of the Irish people is recorded in history! No race in the world is more susceptible to kindness and more easily reached by personal influences, and there are none of whom a pa.s.sionate loyalty is more characteristic. What might have been the effect of a policy of kindness instead of exasperation, we can only guess. But we can all see plainly enough the disastrous results which have come from pouring vitriol upon open wounds, and from treating a nation as if they were not only intruders but outlaws in their own land.

Listen to the Statutes of Kilkenny, pa.s.sed by an obedient Parliament at a time when Edward III. was depending upon sinewy, clean-limbed young Irishmen to fight his battles in France and help him to win _Crecy_.

(Which they did.) These are some of the provisions of the statute: Marriage between English and Irish is punishable by death in most terrible form. It is high treason to give horses, goods, or weapons of any sort to the Irish. War with the natives {209} is binding upon good colonists. To speak the language of the country is a penal offence, and the killing of an Irishman is not to be reckoned as a crime.

But in spite of the ferocity of her purpose, England grew lax. She had great wars on her hands, and more important interests to look after.

Things were left to the Geraldines, and to the Irish Parliament, which was controlled by the Lords of the Pale. Intermarriages, against which horrible penalties had once been enforced, had become frequent, and many dispossessed chiefs, notably the O'Neills, had recovered their own lands. So, when Henry VII. came to the throne, although the Norman banners had for three centuries floated over Ireland, the English territory, "the Pale," was really reduced to a small area about Dublin.

Henry VII. determined to change all this. Sir Edward Poynings came charged with a mission, and Parliament pa.s.sed an Act called _Poynings Act_, by which English laws were made operative in Ireland as in England. When Henry VIII. succeeded his father, the astute Wolsey soon doubted the fidelity of the Geraldines. Of what use {210} were the Statutes of Kilkenny and the Poynings Act, when the ruling Anglo-Irish house acted as if they did not exist! He planned their downfall. The great Earl of Kildare was summoned to London, and six of the doomed house were beheaded in the Tower. The Reformation had given a new aspect to the troubles in Ireland. Henry's attack upon the Church drew together the native Irish and the Anglo-Irish. The struggle had been hitherto only one over territory, between these naturally hostile cla.s.ses; now they were drawn together by a common peril to their Church, and when, in 1560, Queen Elizabeth had pa.s.sed the famous Act of Uniformity, making the Protestant liturgy compulsory, the exasperation had reached an acute stage, and the sense of former wrongs was intensified by this new oppression. Ireland was filled with hatred and burning with desire for vengeance, and there was one proud family in Ulster, the O'Neills, which was preparing to defy all England. They scornfully threw away the t.i.tle "Earl of Tyrone," bestowed upon the head of their house by Henry VIII,, and declared that by virtue {211} of the old Irish law of Tanistry, Shane O'Neill was King of Ulster! It was a test case of the validity of Irish or English laws. "Shane the Proud," the King of Ulster, at the invitation of Elizabeth, appeared with his wild followers at her Court, wearing their saffron shirts and battle-axes. The tactful Queen patched up a peace with her rival, and then made sure that his head should in a few weeks adorn the walls of Dublin Castle. His forfeited kingdom was thickly planted with English and Scotch settlers, who, when they tried to settle, were usually killed by the O'Neills. The only thing to be done was to exterminate this troublesome tribe. This grew into the larger purpose of extirpating the whole of the obnoxious native population. The Geraldines were not all dead, and this atrocious plan led to the famous Geraldine League, and that to the Desmond Rebellion. The league which was to be the avenger of centuries of wrong, was a Catholic one. The Earl of Desmond had long been in communication with Rome and with Spain, enlisting their sympathies for their co-religionists in Ireland.

A recent event {212} helped to steel the hearts of the natives against pity should they succeed. A rising in Connaught had, at the suggestion of Sir Francis Crosby, been put down in the following way. The chiefs and their kinsmen, four hundred in number, were invited to a banquet in the fort of Mullaghmast. But one man escaped alive from that feast of death! One hundred and eighty from the clan of O'Moore alone were slaughtered. It was "Rory O'Moore" who did not attend the banquet, who kept alive the memory of the awful event for many a year by his battle-cry, "Remember Mullaghmast!" Now the long-impending battle was on, with a Geraldine for a standard-bearer. But it was in vain.

Another Earl of Kildare perished in the Tower, and another Desmond head was sent there as a warning against disloyalty! Those who escaped the slaughter fell by the executioner, and the remnant, hiding from both, perished by famine. But Munster was "pacified." The enormous Desmond estate, a hundred miles in territory, was confiscated and planted with settlers who would undertake the doubtful task of settling.

{213}

The smothered fires next broke out in Ulster--the brilliant Earl of Tyrone headed the rebellion bearing his name, with Spain as an ally.

The Queen sent the Earl of Ess.e.x to crush Tyrone. His failure to crush or even to check the great leader, and his extraordinary conduct in consenting to an armistice at the moment when he might have compelled a surrender, brought such a reprimand from the furious Queen that he rushed back to England, and to his death. Another and more successful leader came--Mountjoy. The rebellion was put down, its leader exiled, and his estate, comprising six entire counties, was confiscated, planted with Scotch settlers, and Ulster, too, was "pacified."

The reign of Charles I. revived hope in Ireland. He wanted money, and when Strafford came bearing profuse promises of religious and civil liberty, and the righting of wrongs, a grateful Parliament at once voted the 100,000 demanded for the immediate use of the Crown, also 10,000 foot and 1,000 horse for his use in the impending revolution, which was soon precipitated by the attempt of Charles and Laud to force the liturgy of the Established Church upon {214} the people in Scotland. Between the Scotch Presbyterians and the Irish Catholics there was the bitterest hatred engendered during the long strife between the natives and the Scotch settlers. So the King's cause was Ireland's cause, his enemies were her enemies, and his triumph would also be hers. The day of liberation seemed at hand. The Lords of the Pale were in constant communication with the King and ready to co-operate with him in his designs upon Scotland. Such was the situation when Charles, under the pressure of his need of money, summoned the Parliament (1641)--the famous Long Parliament--which was destined to sit for twenty eventful years.

Well would it be for Ireland if it could blot out the memory of that year (1641) and the horrid event it recalls. The story briefly told is that a plot, having for its end a general forcible exodus of the hated settlers, was discovered and defeated, when a disappointed and infuriated horde of armed men spent their rage upon a community of Scotch settlers in Armagh and Tyrone, whom they ma.s.sacred with horrible barbarities.

There is no reason to believe this deed was {215} premeditated; but it occurred, and was atrocious in details and appalling in magnitude.

There can be no justification for ma.s.sacre at any time; but if there were no background of cruelty for this particular one, it would stand out blacker even than it does upon the pages of history. There were many ma.s.sacres behind it--ma.s.sacres committed not to avenge wrongs, but to accomplish them! The ma.s.sacre of Protestants by Irish Catholics is in itself no more hideous than the ma.s.sacre of Irish Catholics by Protestants. And was it strange that in their first chance at retaliation, this half-civilized people treated their oppressors as their oppressors had many, many times treated them? Could anything else have been expected? especially when we learn that the Scotch Presbyterians in Tyrone and Armagh immediately retaliated by murdering thirty Irish Catholic families who were in no way implicated in the horror!

Strafford's head had fallen in the first days of the Long Parliament; then Archbishop Laud met the same fate, and finally the execution of Charles I. at Whitehall, in 1649, put an end to the dreams of liberation. {216} Almost the first thing to occupy the attention of Cromwell was the settling of accounts with the Catholic rebels in Ireland, who had for years been intriguing with the traitor King and were even now plotting with the Pope's nuncio, Rinucini, for the return of the exiled Prince Charles.

It required six years and 600,000 lives for Cromwell to inflict proper punishment upon Ireland for these offences and the ma.s.sacre of 1641; or rather, to _prepare_ for the punishment which was now to begin, and for which we shall search history in vain for a parallel! The heroic Cromwellian scheme--which was carried out to the letter--was this: The entire native population were, before May 1, 1654, to depart in a body for Connaught, there to inhabit a small reservation in a desolate tract between the Shannon and the sea, of which it was said by one of the commissioners engaged in this business, "there was not wood enough to burn, water enough to drown, nor earth enough to bury a man." They must not go within two miles of the river, nor four miles of the sea, a cordon of soldiers being permanently stationed with orders to shoot {217} anyone who overstepped such limits. Any Irish who after the date named were found east of the appointed line were to suffer death.

Resistance was hopeless. We hear of wild pleas for time, for a brief delay to collect a few comforts, and make some provision for food and shelter. But at the beating of the drum and blast of the trumpet, and urged on by bayonets, the tide of wretched humanity flowed into Connaught, delicately nurtured ladies and children, the infirm, the sick, the high and the low, peer and peasant, sharing alike the vast sentence of banishment and starvation. The fate of others was even worse, many thousands, ladies, children, people of all ranks, had for various reasons been left behind. Wholesale executions of so great a number of helpless beings were impossible, so they were sold in batches and shipped, most of them to the West Indies and to the newly acquired island of Jamaica, to be heard of never more; while of the st.u.r.dier remnant left, a few fled into exile in other lands, and the rest to the woods, there to lead lives of wild brigandage, hiding like wolves in caves and clefts of rocks, with a price upon their heads!

{218}

Of the two crimes, the Cromwellian settlement and the ma.s.sacre of 1641, it seems to the writer of this that Cromwell's is the heavier burden for the conscience of a nation to carry! Who can wonder that the Irish did not love England, and that the task of governing a people so estranged has been a difficult one for English statesmanship ever since?

But the extinction of a nation requires time, even when accomplished by measures so admirable as those employed in the Cromwellian settlement.

In 1660 Charles II. was on his father's throne, and we hear of hopes revived, and the expectation that the awful suffering endured for the father would be rewarded by his son. The land of the exiles in Connaught had been bestowed by Cromwell upon his followers. But quick to discern the turn in the tide, these men had helped to bring the exiled Prince Charles back to his throne. They expected reward, not punishment! Like many another successful candidate, Charles was embarra.s.sed by obligations to his friends; besides, he must not offend the anti-Catholic sentiment in England, which since the ma.s.sacre of {219} 1641 had become a pa.s.sion. The matter of the land was finally adjudicated; such Irish as could clear themselves of complicity with the Papal Nuncio and of certain other serious offences, of which almost all were guilty, might have their possessions restored to them. So a small portion of the land came back to its owners, and the Duke of Ormond, a stanch Protestant, was created Viceroy.

Although nominally a Protestant, to the pleasure-loving Charles the religion of his kingdom was the very smallest concern. So, more from indifference than indulgence, things became easier for the Irish Catholics, and exiles began to return. The Protestants, both English and Irish, were alarmed. With the ma.s.sacre ever before them, they believed the only safety for Protestants was in keeping the Irish papists in a condition of absolute helplessness. There was a smouldering ma.s.s of apprehension which needed only a spark to convert it into a blaze. The murder of Sir Edward Bery G.o.dfrey, a magistrate, afforded this spark. t.i.tus Gates, the most worthless scoundrel in all England, had recently made a sworn statement before this gentleman to the effect {220} that a plot existed for the murder of the King in order to place his Catholic brother on the throne, to be followed by a general ma.s.sacre of Protestants, the burning of London, and an invasion of Ireland by the French. When Sir Edward was found dead upon a hill-side, men's minds leaped to the conclusion that the carnival of blood had begun. An insane panic set in. Nothing short of death would satisfy the popular frenzy. The Roman Catholic Archbishop, Dr.

Plunkett, a man revered and beloved even by Protestants, was dragged to London, and for complicity in a French plot which never existed, and for aiding a French invasion which had never been contemplated, was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Innocent victims were torn from their homes, fifteen sent to the gallows, and 2,000 languished in prisons, while a suite of apartments at Whitehall and 600 a year was bestowed upon Gates, who was greeted as the saviour of his country! In two years more Gates was driven from his apartment at Whitehall for calling the heir to the throne a traitor, was found guilty of perjury, and sentenced to be pilloried, flogged, and imprisoned for life. {221} And so ended the famous "Popish Plot" of 1678.

In 1685 Charles II. died, and was succeeded by his brother, James II.

It was precisely because this ignominious reign was so disastrous to England, that it was a period of brief triumph for Ireland. That country was the corner-stone for the political structure which James had long contemplated. It was the stronghold for the Catholicism which he intended should become the religion of his kingdom. The Duke of Ormond was deposed, and a Catholic filled the office of Viceroy in Ireland. At last their turn had come, and no time was lost. An Irish Parliament was summoned, in which there were just six Protestants. All the things of which they had dreamed for years were accomplished. The Poynings Act was repealed. Irish disabilities were removed. The Irish proprietors dispossessed by the Act of Settlement had their lands restored to them. All Protestants, under terrible penalties, were ordered to give up their arms before a certain day. 'Men' only recently with a price upon their heads were now officers in the King's service, and were {222} quartering their soldiers upon the estates of the Protestants. There was a general exodus of the Protestants, some fleeing to England and others into the North, where they finally entrenched themselves in the cities of Enniskillen and Londonderry, winning for that last-named city imperishable fame by their heroic defence during a siege which lasted one hundred and five days.

In the meantime it had become evident in England that the safety of the kingdom demanded the expulsion of James. His son-in-law, William of Orange, accepted an invitation to come and share the English throne with his wife Mary. The fugitive King found a refuge with his friend and co-conspirator, Louis XIV., and from France continued to direct the revolutionary movements in Ireland, which he intended to use as a stepping-stone to his kingdom.

But for Catholic Ireland all these over-turnings meant only a realization of the long-prayed-for event, a separation from England, a kingdom of their own, with the Catholic James to reign over them. When he arrived with his fleet and his French officers and munitions of war, provided by Louis {223} XIV., he was embraced with tears of rapturous joy. Their "Deliverer" had come! He pa.s.sed under triumphal arches and over flower-strewn roads on his way to Dublin Castle. But almost before these flowers had faded, James had met the army of William, the "Battle of the Boyne" had been fought and lost (1690), and as fast as the winds would carry him he had fled back to France.

As the city of Londonderry had been the last refuge for the Protestants in the North, it was in the city of Limerick that the Irish Catholics made their last stand in the South. And the two names stand for companion acts of valor and heroism. Saarsfield's magnificent defence of the latter city after the flight of the King and during the terrible siege by William's army under Ginkel, is the one luminous spot in the whole campaign of disaster and defeat. With the surrender of Limerick the end had come. Their "Deliverer" was again a fugitive in France, and Ireland was face to face with an austere Protestant King, once more to be called to account and to receive punishment for her crimes.

By the famous Articles of Limerick the terms of the surrender, wrung by Saarsfield's {224} valor from the English commander, were more favorable than could have been expected. These were a full pardon, and a restoration of the rights enjoyed by the Catholics under Charles II.

The army, with its officers, was to go into exile, and they might choose either the service of William in England, or enroll themselves in the service of France, Spain, or other European countries. The latter was the choice of all except a very few; and when the heart-rending separation was over, wives and mothers clinging in despair to the retreating vessels, the last act in the Great Rebellion of 1690 was finished.

Of course the Poynings law was restored, the recent Acts repealed, and a new period had commenced for Ireland; a period of quiet, but a quiet not unlike that of the graveyard, the sort of quiet which makes the wounded and exhausted animal cease to struggle with his captors. For a whole century we are to hear of no more revolts, risings, or rebellions. There was nothing left to revolt. Nothing left to rise!

The bone and sinew of the nation had gone to fight under strange banners upon foreign battle-fields, so there was left a nation of non-combatants, {225} with spirit broken and hope extinguished, and grown so pathetically patient, that we hear not a single remonstrance as William's cold-blooded decrees, known as the "Penal Code," are placed in operation. These enactments were not blood-thirsty, not sanguinary, like those of former reigns, but just a deliberate process apparently designed to convert the Irish into a nation of outcasts, by destroying every germ of ambition and drying up every spring which is the source of self-respecting manhood.

Here are a few of the provisions of the famous, or infamous, code: No Papist could acquire or dispose of property; nor could he own a horse of the value of more than 5; and any Protestant offering that sum for a horse he must accept it. He might not practise any learned profession, nor teach a school, nor send his children to school at home or abroad. Every barrister, clerk, and attorney must take a solemn oath not for any purpose to employ persons belonging to that religious faith. The discovery of any weapon rendered its Catholic owner liable to fines, whipping, the pillory, and imprisonment. He could not inherit, or {226} even receive property as a gift from Protestants.

The oldest son of a Catholic, by embracing the Protestant faith, became the heir-at-law to the whole estate of his father, who was reduced to the position of life-tenant; and any child by the same Act might be taken away from its father and a portion of his property a.s.signed to it; while it was the privilege of the wife who apostatized, to be freed from her husband, and to have a.s.signed to her a proportion of his property.