faith-were made necessary as qualifications for political privileges; and they were thus subjected to grievous hardships and disabilities. The conquered, according to the Articles of Limerick, were to be secured in the enjoyment of "their goods and chattels," as well as of "their estates of freehold and inheritance," with all their rights, interests, and immunities: and yet, in 1695, the Irish Parliament ordained that anyone convicted of sending his child to the continent to be educated in the Roman Catholic religion, should be disabled from prosecuting any action in course of law; be incapable of any legacy or deed of gift; and should lose all his goods and chattels, as well as "forfeit all his hereditaments, rents, annuities, offices, and estate of freehold." Romanists were disarmed, and disqualified by law from teaching public schools :2 and a Protestant heiress, who married a papist, was doomed to lose her inheritance. Other equally odious enactments obtained the sanction of the Irish Legislature. Under the pretext that the disaffected might collect a formidable force of cavalry, a law was made in 1695 declaring that no papist was to be at liberty to keep a horse worth five pounds; and that, no

1 The 7th of William III., chap. iv., s. I.

2 Ibid. chap. iv., s. 9.

3 The 9th of William III., chap. iii. By the same Act (s. 2) any Protestant marrying a R. C. wife was himself to be deemed a papist, and to be disabled from sitting in either House of Parliament, "unless such person so marrying shall, within one year after such marriage, procure such wife to be converted to the Protestant religion." In 1727 a Committee of the Irish House of Commons decided that, under this Act, Protestants married to popish wives were disqualified to vote for members of Parliament. Hist. Memoir of the O'Briens, p. 386.

4 A story is told of a R. C. gentleman, named Mageoghegan, who on one occasion, at the time of the assizes, drove into Mullingar in his carriage drawn by two beautiful horses. A scoundrel who was there, claimed the pair under this Act. The owner immediately drew out a brace of pistols and shot both the animals on the spot! Another story is told of a stalwart priest, named Barnwall, who had been presented with a handsome steed which was claimed in the same way. Most reluctantly the horse was surrendered; but, as the new proprietor was riding off, Barnwall reminded him that he had no right to the saddle and bridle. The stranger scoffed at this suggestion: whereupon the priest, with a blow of his whip, stretched him on the ground, and remounted. Barnwall was immediately taken before a justice of the peace, but the friendly magistrate acquitted him, on the ground that the other was taking forcible possession of the accoutrements. Cogan's Diocese of Meath, ii. 419, 268.

matter what might be the real value of the animal, any Protestant making tender of five pounds five shillings to the owner, in the presence of a justice of the peace, was entitled to become the proprietor. In 1697 an Act was passed professedly for the purpose of confirming the Articles of Limerick 2 but those most deeply interested in their conservation believed that it curtailed and mutilated the benefits so solemnly guaranteed: and when some who felt specially aggrieved petitioned to be heard by counsel against the measure before it became law, their application was unanimously rejected.3 In the same session of Parliament another far more sweeping piece of legislation was adopted. All popish archbishops, bishops, vicars general, deans, jesuits, monks, friars, and all papists exercising any ecclesiastical jurisdiction, were required to leave the kingdom before the Ist of May, 1698, on pain of being kept in prison till sent out of the country and, should any of them venture to return, they were to be adjudged guilty of high treason.*

Irish Protestants may well blush as they look back on these proceedings. They were certainly not in accordance with either the letter or the spirit of the Articles of Limerick.5 Special pleaders may maintain that William was merely pledged by the treaty "to endeavour to procure" from Par

1 The 7th of William III., chap. v., s. 10.

2 The 9th of William III., chap. ii. 3 Plowden's Hist, Rev., i. 201-2, note. 4 The 9th of William III., chap. i. The number of the regular (Monastic) clergy driven out of Ireland in 1698 is said to have been 454, viz., 153 from Dublin, 190 from Galway, seventy-five from Cork, and thirty-six from Waterford. Brenan's Ecc. Hist., p. 490. It is said that at this time only twenty-five priests remained in the County and City of Cork. Bennett's Bandon, p. 289.

The following is the very first article of the Treaty of Limerick :-"The Roman Catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland; or as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles II.: and their Majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such farther security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion." Every man of ordinary candour must admit that this article was atrociously violated. It was afterwards pleaded that certain privileges were guaranteed only to those who were then actually in arms; but surely those who were not were entitled to at least equal indulgence.

liament the confirmation of the terms of capitulation; and that the Great Council of the Nation was not bound to ratify his arrangements. It has been argued that the Irish senators knew better than the King the circumstances of the country, and saw the danger of his concessions. But William, in his native land, had known the advantages of toleration;1 and few will now venture to affirm that he had not more political sagacity than any of these colonial legislators. Had he not been raised up by Providence for their help, they might have lost their all, and been driven ignominiously from the country. Gratitude should have prompted them to carry out his engagements with scrupulous fidelity. The Irish Romanists could not now retrace their steps: their last stronghold had been surrendered; and many of its defenders had left the country. The representatives of the Anglo-Irish colony acted most ingloriously when they compelled their deliverer to break faith with their fallen foes; and when they refused to supplement a treaty which he had accepted as proper and equitable. Nor was this all. Without any fresh provocation on the part of the Irish, they made their position more humiliating than, with the exception of the days of Cromwell, it had ever been before.

At this period Ireland presented, to the spiritual eye, a strange and melancholy spectacle. It did not, indeed, want tokens of material prosperity. Land was cheap; food abundant; and trade prosperous.2 The island, reduced to a desert by the late war, rapidly recovered from its desolation. But its moral features might well have awakened the deepest anxiety. More than two-thirds of its inhabitants were Romanists; they were ardently attached to their native soil; and many of them had made great sacrifices for the sake of their religion. Among the thousands who retired to France after the surrender of Limerick, were not a few brave, highspirited, and honest men. Deeply must they have been moved as they cast a last look on their native hills, and

1 Holland was the first country in Europe in which the doctrine of toleration was practised.

2 Parnell's History of the Penal Laws, p. 96. Dublin, 1808.

turned away their faces for ever from the land of their fathers' sepulchres. In the armies of foreign princes they soon attained distinction; and, in after times, British soldiers, in the wars of the continent, were more than once obliged to quail before the valour of the Irish Brigade.1 In the reigns of James I. and Charles I., as well as under the government of Cromwell, an immense quantity of landed property had been confiscated in Ireland; and the war of the Revolution involved the forfeiture of upwards of another million of acres. Though the Protestants constituted a small minority of the population, they were now, beyond dispute, dominant; for we have seen that Romanists, immediately after the close of the revolutionary struggle, were excluded from seats in the Legislature. By an Act passed in 1698 all, except those expressly included in the Articles of Limerick, were prevented even from practising as solicitors. It is no less noteworthy that the dominant party consisted, not of all the adherents of the Reformed faith in Ireland, but of the Episcopalians—including little more than the one-half of the Protestant inhabitants. Their bishops were now by far the most influential section of the Irish House of Lords; and every measure which had not the full approval of these most reverend and right reverend prelates was almost sure to be rejected by Parliament. The three hundred members 5 of

1 See Bennett's Bandon, p. 268. It is a singular fact that the expatriated Irish were afterwards employed in hunting to death the Protestant Camisards in France. See O'Conor's Irish Brigades, p. 297. When George II. heard that three Irish regiments, at the battle of Fontenoy, in 1745, had secured victory to the French, he is reported to have said :-"Cursed be the laws which deprive me of such subjects!"-PLOWDEN's Hist. Rev. i. 291, note.

2 The number of forfeited acres is said to have been 1,107,787, Plantation measure. See Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxiv. Antiq. part iii., p. 279. Dublin, 1865.

It is well known that there was a dispute as to the wording of the Articles, and that many were disposed to interpret them in the most limited sense. See Froude's English in Ireland, i. 203, 204.

4 The 10th of William III., chap. xiiii.

The Parliament of 1692 was the first which had 300 members. The following boroughs returned representatives to it for the first time-viz. : Granard, Randalstown, Midleton, Charleville, Dunlier, Castlemartyr, Doneraile, Rathcormick, Harristowne, Longford and Portarlington.

the Irish House of Commons, with about ten exceptions,1 were all at least nominally attached to the Established Church; in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant, a bishop or archbishop, as a Lord Justice, was often entrusted with the government of the country: and thus the whole influence of the State was employed in the support of Protestant episcopacy. But it does not appear that it made any notable progress in these days of its political supremacy. Many churches, destroyed or injured during war, were, no doubt, rebuilt or repaired; and a few additional sacred edifices were erected in districts where the Protestant population had increased by removals or immigration; but the mass of the natives adhered with wonderful unanimity and earnestness to the religion of Rome; and little was done to promote their spiritual enlightenment. A few feeble efforts were made to provide instruction in the Irish language; and in this way individual Romanists here and there were won over to Protestantism.2 Such attempts were, however, ill-sustained; as those who occupied high positions in the Church did not generally give them any hearty encouragement. It may seem strange that the ecclesiastical establishment, with so much wealth and power at its command, proved so inefficient; but no one acquainted with the circumstances can find any difficulty in pointing out the causes of its want of success. Some of these may be here briefly noticed.

In many cases the character of the clergy was ill-fitted to commend them to those among whom they ministered. Queen Mary, who had excellent means of obtaining information, must have received a most humiliating account of them; for, when writing to her victorious husband a few days after the battle of the Boyne, she felt it necessary to press the sub

1 The following Presbyterian members sat in the Irish Parliament of 1692— viz. Sir Robert Adair, of Ballymena, for the borough of Antrim ; Arthur Upton, of Templepatrick, for the same borough; James Macartney, of Belfast, for the borough of Belfast; Randal Brice, of Castlechester, for the borough of Lisburn ; William Stewart, of Killymoon, for the borough of Charlemont; Colonel Hugh Hamill, for the borough of Lifford; James Hamilton, of Tullymore, for the borough of Downpatrick; and David Cairnes, of Derry, for the city of Derry. 2 It is said that, after the surrender of Limerick, a number of Romanists became Protestants.-Bennett's Bandon, p. 268.