NOTE III. ON CHAPTER V.

P. 139. Royal martyr.] In one particular sense, there is some slight appearance of justice in this designation. During the protracted negotiation with the parliament, while Charles I. was a prisoner, he might have made terms with them, had he consented to abandon Episcopacy, and to establish the Presbyterian religion. His pertinacious rejection of this proposition, lost him the support of those who would otherwise probably have once more placed the sceptre in his hands.

NOTE IV. ON CHAPTER V.

DP. 142. As Leland clearly intimates.] At every step of our progress through the Irish history, we have to lament and censure the disingenuity of the writers-the suppressio veri-the lenity they extend to the oppressors of Ireland, and the severity with which they animadvert on the guilt, real or supposed, of the Irish. This is a striking case. Charles, as stated in the text, made a fair contract with his Irish subjects. They honourably performed their part. An informality prevented his immediate compliance. That informality it was in his power to remove, by issuing a license for the meeting of the Irish Parliament, and taking order that all the requisite forms should be observed: and his failure to adopt this measure, was as base and as fraudulent, as it

ous.

would be for a private person, who had sold a house, or a piece of land, and received the price, to refuse to make the deed, or convey the property. And how does Leland record this shameful fact? Why he smoothly informs us, that "the king's sincerity appeared at least suspici"152 And further: "The king stood engaged, that his graces should be confirmed by a law of Parliament and the insincerity of his professions was not yet completely discovered."153 Had such a transaction taken place on the part of the Irish, all the powers of language would have been exhausted to brand them with infamy.

a few

The duplicity of Charles was made manifest, years subsequent to this period; and stands recorded in his own hand-writing. The administration of Ireland was, anno 1633, confided to lord Strafford, who was induced, by the embarrassment of the king's affairs, to call a Parliament, for the purpose of raising a revenue for his master. There was a considerable difficulty in the way, to evade the sacred pledge given by Charles, and to keep the Irish in temper, without performance of the contract. Strafford, bold, daring, and unprincipled, took upon himself the odium of the non-compliance, asserting publicly to Parliament, that he had not communicated their demands to Charles; although his own letters, since published, prove this to have been 153 Idem, III. 3.

152 Leland, II. 570.

a flagrant falsehood. Charles, delighted and enraptured to be screened from the performance of his engagement, and to find his satrap assume the odium of the perfidy, of which his Irish subjects were the victims, wrote him, with his own hand, a letter of the most unqualified approbation :

"Wentworth,

"Before I answer any of your particular letters to me, I must tell you that your late public despatch has given me a great deal of contentment; and especially for the keeping off the envy of a necessary negative from me of those unreasonable graces that people expected of me."154

Perfidious as was this conduct, I do not pretend that Charles deserved thereby the fate that then impended over him. But this I dare aver, and do not fear much contradiction, that it must materially diminish the commiseration that upright men might feel for his downfal.

154 Strafford, I. 331.

CHAPTER VI.

Security of person, during lord Clarendon's millenium. Martial law. Acts of state. Jurors punished with imprisonment and mutilation..

"This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues.'

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We have considered the question of religious liberty, during the forty years' millenium, the glories of which lord Clarendon has so elegantly recorded. We now proceed to consider that of . personal security, on which ground, it is obvious, that to justify the noble writer, it would be indispensably necessary that the subject should be free from injury or molestation in his person, unless, by the infraction of some known law, he rendered himself amenable to its penal sanctions.

This was so far from being the case, that throughout this whole "blessed period of peace and security," martial law was uninterruptedly in force, and carried into execution whenever and wherever it suited the purposes of the government or its partisans.

Acts of state too, or, in other words, acts of the Privy Council, had all the force of the laws of

155 Shakspeare.

the land; and were enforced by arrest, fine, and imprisonment.*

Jurors who refused to give verdicts agreeably to the wishes of the judges and the government, were cited before the Star-Chamber Court, and ruinously fined, and most grievously imprisoned.†

On the two first points, the characteristic infidelity of the historians of Irish affairs stands glaringly conspicuous. With such important features in the political economy of the government, we should be almost wholly unacquainted,

-* Extract from the Impeachment of lord Strafford.

“Article 4. The said earl of Strafford said that he would make the earl [of Cork] and all Ireland know, so long as he had the government there, any act of state, there made or to be made, should be as binding to the subjects of that kingdom, as an act of Parliament."156

"As for the words, he confessed them to be true; and thought he said no more than what became him; considering how much his master's honour was concerned in him; and that if a proportionable obedience was not as well due to acts of state, as to acts of Parliament, in vain did councils sit; and that he had done no more than what former deputies had done."'157

"He proved by the lord Dillon, in the lord Chichester's and lord Grandison's time, that the acts of state were by the judges reputed as laws of the land for the present, and proceeded by arrest, imprisonment, and fines, upon contempt, which Sir Adam Loftus confirmed."158

+"Concerning the sentencing of jurors, and the questioning them in the Star-Chamber," said lord Strafford, on his trial, "it is true; divers of these sentences were past.'

156 Baker, 499.

158 Nalson, 11. 58.

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157 Frankland, 883.

159 Idem, 45.