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formed a plan for the subversion of the Government. Colonel Blood, a man of restless temperament and of daring character, was the most active of the conspirators. They proposed to make a prisoner of the Duke of Ormonde,1 to seize the Castle of Dublin, to put an end to the tyranny of the bishops, and to take steps for the suppression of Popery. Though most of them had long before repudiated the guidance of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, they now seemed inclined to retrace their steps; for they talked of "settling religion according to the Solemn League and Covenant." But the whole scheme-which was conceived in folly-terminated in disaster. The plot was detected when it was ripe for execution; Blood contrived to make his escape; but others who were implicated were captured and executed.3 A Presbyterian minister named Lecky, who was resident in Dublin, and who was the brother-in-law of Blood, had been so misguided as to join in the conspiracy; and he was one of those who suffered the penalty of death.

As a body, the Presbyterians of Ulster had no part in this movement. Blood had been among them, and had earnestly sought their co-operation; but they refused to give him any encouragement. One or two of their ministers of little note deviated from the course pursued by their wiser and more experienced brethren; and were, in consequence, obliged to quit the country. But though, with a single exception, the Presbyterian pastors in Down and Antrim had not been in any way connected with the plot, orders were issued by a suspicious Government for the apprehension of them all; a considerable number endured a tedious imprisonment; and many of them were forced to leave the kingdom.

to secure an unchallenged tenure of all that remained."-FROUDE's English in Ireland, i. 151. Between the passing of the Act of Settlement in 1662, and the passing of the Act of Explanation in 1665, there was much dissatisfaction among all classes in Ireland.

1 Immediately after the Restoration, this nobleman -before a marquis--was made a duke.

2 Carte, ii. 268; Reid, ii. 292.

4 Reid, ii. 290-1.

3 Carte, ii. 270.

Carte has supplied a very confused and somewhat contradictory report of this affair; and he is followed by Mant, who absurdly speaks of it as if it had been

communication and interdict.1 Such was the humiliating position in which this proud Italian now found himself.

Ormonde, who had been for some time past in France, had been anxiously watching the progress of events in Ireland. His correspondents in this country had of late been urgently pressing him to return; and the time seemed to have arrived when he could again appear with advantage on the political arena. Embarking at Havre de Grâce, he arrived at Cork towards the end of September, 1648, with a retinue of about one hundred persons; and, soon afterwards, was invited to repair to Kilkenny to settle the terms of a peace with the Supreme Council. He readily acceded to this overture; and his reception, in a place which had been for upwards of six years the capital of the Confederacy, revealed a wonderful change in public sentiment. As he approached the city, a large concourse-including the members of the General Assembly, the nobility, the gentry, and the clergy-met him to bid him welcome; he was received, in state, by the magistrates; and, surrounded by his own guards, was permitted to occupy the seat of his ancestors, the castle of Kilkenny.2 After some weeks spent in negotiation, a peace was concluded; and, on the 17th of January, 1649, the whole of the Confederate Assembly, headed by their chairman, Sir Richard Blake, presented the articles to the Lord Lieutenant for his acceptance and confirmation. He caused them to be immediately proclaimed; and even the clergy, by declarations and circular letters, signified their approval of the agreement.*

Though the terms fell far short of those proposed by Rinuccini, they were in some respects more favourable to the Romanists than any they had yet obtained. All the penal statutes against them were to be repealed, and their freedom of worship was secured. They were to retain the churches already in their possession until the King's pleasure should be declared. Ormonde consented meanwhile to divest himself

1 O'Conor's Hist. Address, p. 177.

2 Borlase, p. 201.

3 See Cox, ii., appendix xliv.

Borlase, p. 202; Cox, ii. 205; Leland, iii. 334.

For a copy of this treaty see Cox, ii., appendix xliii. See also Milton's observations on the Articles in his Works. Ed. London, 1866, pp. 247, 262.

yet assembled; and, had he been at all inclined to lenity, he might have permitted these brethren to remain still in the Establishment.1 He proceeded on the principle that all laws, in existence before the overthrow of the royal authority, were valid; and that, consequently, he was authorized to insist on the observance of the Act of Uniformity. But that Actpassed a century before-had, until now, been seldom carried. strictly into execution; and the author of the "Liberty of Prophesying" was guilty of the most shameful inconsistency when he thus commenced his episcopal career by deposing the best and most faithful preachers in Down and Antrim.

Bramhall, the Primate, adopted a course somewhat different from that pursued by Taylor. He assumed that those who had received only Presbyterian ordination were not qualified to officiate as ministers of the Church of Ireland; and, when they refused to be re-ordained, he declined to recognize them, and declared their places vacant. He thus acted without any legal warrant; for the law had not yet pronounced ordination by Presbyters invalid ; and, in the confession drawn up by Ussher for the use of the Established Church in 1615, it was virtually acknowledged. It was, however, useless, in the present position of affairs in Ireland, to dispute the will of the lords spiritual.

1 About this time some changes were made in the English ritual. In 1665 the Irish Parliament passed an Act requiring all the clergy to adopt the revised English Liturgy. The Act is the 17th and 18th of Charles II., chap. vi. Several parts

of the Act of Uniformity, passed in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, had never been generally enforced. Had Taylor been at all inclined to lenity, he might have indulged the Presbyterian ministers for four years longer, that is, until the passing of the new Act of Uniformity in 1665.

Afraid to offend the Prot stant churches on the Continent, Bramhall and others did not profess to annihilate Presbyterian ordination; but they practically treated it as a nullity. See Mant, i. 623.

The Statute of the 13th of Elizabeth, chap. 12, admits the ministrations of those ordained in Scotland or in foreign churches. In 1665 the Irish Parliament virtually acknowledged that the prelates had previously acted illegally; for it made a law to the effect that, from the 29th of September, 1667, every person not in holy orders by episcopal ordination, or who should not be ordained before that date "according to the form of episcopal ordination," should be disabled from holding an ecclesiastical benefice. See Mant, i. 646. This Act would have been unnecessary had not Bramhall been acting unconstitutionally.

long resident in Rome-was appointed agent for the Confederates at the Court of the sovereign Pontiff. Wadding was much respected in the metropolis of Italy; and the leaders of the Irish Romanists again and again felt and acknowledged the importance of his services. He provided officers for their armies; raised money to pay their troops; and otherwise exerted himself with wonderful zeal to promote their cause. But, during the decline of the Confederacy, he suffered much from misrepresentation and ingratitude. In 1649 the Marquis of Ormonde, aware of his influence, sent him a communication in which it was suggested that, under the peculiar circumstances of the country, special care should be taken to select pious and loyal men to preside over the religious orders in Ireland. The Irish monks at Rome in some way heard of this letter, and understood that Wadding was not indisposed to sanction the policy it recommended. Their wrath was ungovernable; and neither the age, nor the fame for almost unrivalled scholarship, nor the remembrance of the past career of the great Franciscan, could protect him from their insults. On one occasion when the Pope-Innocent X.-appeared in public, a mob of Irish monks, headed by an Irishman named Francis Magruairck, fell down before him on their knees, and presented to him a memorial in which Wadding was denounced as a correspondent of the English heretics, a patron of apostates, and a man personally infamous. "He took this procedure of his countrymen so to heart," says a contemporary, "that he carried the grief thereof with him not long after to his grave." The monks, when presenting their complaint, cried out lustily, "Justice, Holy Father."2 Wadding

spent much of his life on the Continent, and died at Louvain in 1658. He was the author of Acta Sanctorum, Triadis Thaumaturga, and other works. He succeeded, as lecturer on divinity at Louvain in 1635, another native of the Co. of Donegal, named Hugh Ward-a man noted for his acquaintance with the antiquities of his country. Ward left behind him a vast collection of manuscripts which Colgan turned to good account. Michael O'Clery, so well known as one of the compilers of the Annals of the Four Masters, was a fellow worker with Colgan and Ward in the field of Irish antiquarian literature. O'Clery died in his native Co. of Donegal in 1643, aged 63 years.

1 Walsh's History of the Remonstrance, pp. 592-3.

2 Ibid. p. 592.

ness. Though, for a time, the Presbyterian ministers of Ulster suffered severely because of their supposed connection with Blood's Plot, the prosecution, on the whole, was not permanently prejudicial to their interests; for their innocence was so fully established, and their peaceable demeanour so clearly ascertained, that the State at length seemed disposed to make amends for their unjust imprisonment by permitting them to preach without molestation. The ministers who had fled into Scotland began, one after another, to return; the people, in defiance of the threats of the episcopal party, attended on their services; and meeting-houses were soon erected in various districts. In 1669 presbyteries were organized; and, though it was deemed prudent to hold these courts in private, arrangements were made by them for the maintenance of discipline, and for the supply of vacant congregations.1 The Duke of Ormonde, when Lord Lieutenant, was disposed to treat the Presbyterians with indulgence; and he was wont to say that their case was a hard one, as they had formerly suffered for the King, and were now obliged to suffer under him. In 1672 Sir Arthur Forbes-afterwards Earl Granard -who, about that time, was one of the Lords Justices of Ireland, recommended them to the monarch's favour; and, in consequence, their ministers then obtained their first grant of Regium Donum. This grant-amounting to £600 per annum3 -was to be shared with the widows and orphans of those who had been ejected at the Restoration. Though they received so substantial a token of royal consideration, they were patronized, as it were, by stealth; for the Regium Donum was given under the name of secret service money. The civil disabilities imposed on them in the statute book were not removed; and

his head, and entered the chapel, when all the people were on their knees praying to their idol, or images, and spoke as followeth: Woe to these idolatrous worshippers: God hath sent me this day to warn you, and to show you what will be your portion, except you repent'-which when he had done, he went away to the town."-WIGHT AND RUTTY'S History of the Rise and Progress of the Quakers, PP. 117, 119, 120.

Reid, ii. 309.

2 Ibid. ii. 285.

3 Charles II. proposed to give them £1,200 per annum; but it appeared that nothing more than the sum mentioned in the text was forthcoming. Reid, ii. 334, 335, nole. 4 Reid, ii. 334, 335, note.

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