The Irish Race in the Past and the Present Part 36

Their wives could, by no persuasion, be induced to speak English, so that, however it might go against the grain, the husbands were compelled to learn Irish and speak it habitually as best they might. Their difficulties began to multiply with their children, when they found them learning Irish in the cradle, irresistible in their Irish wit and humor, and lisping the prayers and reverencing the faith they had learned at their mothers' knees. So that, from that time to this, the posterity of Cromwell's "Ironsides," of such of them at least as remained in Ireland, have been devoted Catholics and ardent Irishmen.

The case was otherwise with the chief officers of the parliamentary army, who had received large estates and could easily obtain wives from England. They remained stanch Protestants, and their children have continued in the religion received with the estates which came to them from this wholesale confiscation. But the bulk of the army, instead of helping to form a Protestant middle cla.s.s and a Protestant yeomanry, has really helped to perpetuate the sway of the Catholic religion in Ireland, and the feeling of nationality so marked to-day. This very remarkable fact has been well established and very plainly set forth, a few years ago, by eminent English reviewers.

Meanwhile, Ireland was a prey to all the evils which can afflict a nation. Pestilence was added to the ravages of war and the woes of transplantation, and it raged alike among the conquerors and the conquered. Friar Morrisson's "Threnodia" reads to-day like an exaggerated lament, the burden of which was drawn from a vivid imagination. Yet can there be little doubt that it scarcely presented the whole truth; an exact reproduction of all the heart-rending scenes then daily enacted in the unfortunate island would prove a tale as moving as ever harrowed the pitying heart of a reader.

And all this suffering was the direct consequence of two things-- the attachment of the Irish to the Catholic religion, and their devotion to the Stuart dynasty. Modern historians, in considering all the circ.u.mstances, express themselves unable to understand the constancy of this people's affection for a line of kings from whom they had invariably experienced, not only neglect, but positive opposition, if not treachery. In their opinion, only the strangest obliquity of judgment can explain such infatuation. Some call it stupidity; but the Irish people have never been taxed with that. Even in the humblest ranks of life among them, there exists, not only humor, but a keenness of perception, and at times an extraordinary good sense, which is quick to detect motives, and find out what is uppermost in the minds of others.

There is but one reading of the riddle, consistent with the whole character of the people: they clung to the Stuarts because they were obedient to the precepts and duties of religion, and labored under the belief, however mistaken, that from the Stuarts alone could they hope for any thing like freedom. Their spiritual rulers had insisted on the duty of sustaining at all hazard the legitimate authority of the king, and they were firmly convinced that they could expect from no other a relaxation of the religious penal statutes imposed on them by their enemies. The more frequent grew their disappointments in the measures adopted by the sovereigns on whom they had set their hopes, the more firmly were they convinced that their intentions were good, but rendered futile by the men who surrounded and coerced them.

Religion can alone explain this singular affection of the Irish people for a race which, in reality, has caused the greatest of their misfortunes.

The subsequent events of this strange history are in perfect keeping with those preceding. A few words will suffice to sketch them.

On the death of Oliver Cromwell, his son Richard, being unable and indeed unwilling to remain at the head of the English state, the nation, tired of the iron rule of the Protector, fearful certainly of anarchy, and preferring the conservative measures of monarchy to the ever-changing revolutions of a commonwealth, recalled the son of Charles I. to the throne.

But a kind of bargain had been struck by him with those who disposed of the crown; and he undertook and promised to disturb as little as possible the vested interests created by the revolution, that is to say, he pledged himself to let the settlement of property remain as he found it. In England that promise was productive of little mischief to the nation at large, though fatal to the not very numerous families who had been deprived of their estates by the Parliament. But, in Ireland, it was a very different matter; for there the interests of the whole nation were ousted to make room for these "vested interests" of proprietors of scarcely ten years' standing.

The Irish n.o.bility and gentry, at first unaware of the existence of this bargain, were in joyful expectation that right would at last be done them, as it was for loyalty to the father of the new king that they had been robbed of all their possessions.

They were soon undeceived. To their surprise, they learned that the speculators, army-officers, and soldiers already in possession of their estates, were not to be disturbed, short as the possession had been; and that only such lands as were yet unappropriated should be returned to their rightful owners, provided only they were not papists, or could prove that they had been "innocent papists."

The consequences of this bargain are clear. The Irish of the old native race who had been, as now appeared, so foolishly ardent in their loyalty to the throne, were to be abandoned to the fate to which Cromwell had consigned them, and could expect to recover nothing of what they had so n.o.bly lost. So flagrantly unjust was the whole proceeding, that after a time many Englishmen even saw the injustice of the decision, and lifted up their voices in defence of the Irish Catholics who alone could hope for nothing from the restoration of royalty. To put a stop to this, the infamous "Oates" fabrication was brought forward, which destroyed a number of English Catholic families and stifled the voice of humanity in its efforts to befriend the Irish race; and so sudden, universal, and lasting, was the effect of this plot in closing the eyes of all to the claims of the Irish, that when its chief promoter, Shaftesbury, was dragged to the Tower and there imprisoned as a miscreant, and Oates himself suffered a punishment too mild for his villany, nevertheless no one thought of again taking up the cause of the Irish natives.

It is almost impossible in these days to realize what has occupied our attention in this chapter. The unparalleled act of spoliation by which four-fifths of the Irish nation were deprived of their property by Cromwell because of their devotion to Charles I., for the alleged reason that they could not prove a constant good affection for the English regicide Parliament, that spoliation was ratified by the son of Charles within a few years after the rightful owners, who had sacrificed their property for the sake of his father, had been dispossessed, while the parliamentarians, who by force of arms had broken down the power of Charles and enabled the members of the Long Parliament to try their king and bring him to the block, those very soldiers and officers were left in possession of their ill- gotten plunder, at a time when many of the owners were only a few miles away in Connaught, or even inhabiting the out-houses of their own mansions, and tilling the soil as menial servants of Cromwell's troopers.

The case, apparently similar, which occurred in after-years, of the French emigrant n.o.bility, cannot be compared with the result of this strange concession of Charles II. In fact, it may be said that the spoliations of 1792-'93 in France would probably never have taken place but for the successful example held up to the eyes of the legislators of the French Republic by the English Revolution.

As for the share which Charles II. himself bore in the measure, it is best told by the fact that the work of spoliation was carried on so vigorously during the reign of the "merry monarch,"

that when a few years later William of Orange came to the throne there was no land left for him to dispose of among his followers save the last million of acres. All the rest had been portioned off. Well might Dr. Madden say: "The whole of Ireland has been so thoroughly confiscated that the only exception was that of five or six families of English blood, some of whom had been attainted in the reign of Henry VIII., but recovered flourished ever since. Yet did they not refuse the accessory with the princ.i.p.al. Deluded men they may be called by many; but people cannot ordinarily understand the high motives which move men swayed only by the twofold feeling of religion and nationality.

Nothing in our opinion could better prove that the Irish were really a nation, at the time we speak of, than the remarks just set forth. When all minds are so unanimous, the wills so ready, the arms so strong and well prepared to strike together, it must be admitted that in the whole exists a common feeling, a national will. Self-government may be wanting; it may have been suppressed by sheer force and kept under by the most unfavorable state of affairs, but the nation subsists and cannot fail ultimately to rise.

In those eventful times shone forth too that characteristic which has already been remarked upon of a true conservative spirit and instinctive hatred for every principle which in our days is called radical and revolutionary. Had there existed in the Irish disposition the least inclination toward those social and moral aberrations, productive to-day of so many and such widespread evils, surely the period of the English Revolution was the fitting time to call them forth, and turn them from their steady adherence to right and order into the new channels, toward which nations were being then hurried, and which would really have favored for the time being their own efforts for independence. Then would the Irish have presented to future historians as stirring an episode of excitement and activity as was furnished by the English and Scotch at that time, by the French later on, and which to-day most European nations offer.

The temptation was indeed great. They saw with what success rebellion was rewarded among the English and Scotch. They themselves were sure to be stamped as rebels whichever side they took; and, as was seen, Charles II. allowed his commissioners in his act of settlement so to style them, and punish them for it-- for supporting the cause of his father against the Parliament.

Would it not have been better for them to have become once, at least, rebels in true earnest, and reap the same advantage from rebellion which all around them reaped? Yet did they stand proof against the demoralizing doctrines of Scotch Covenanter and English republican. Hume, who was openly adverse to every thing Irish, is compelled to describe this Catholic people as "loyal from principle, attached to regal power from religious education, uniformly opposing popular frenzy, and zealous vindicators of royal prerogatives."

All this was in perfect accord with their traditional spirit and historical recollections. Revolutionary doctrines have always been antagonistic to the Irish mind and heart. This will appear more fully when recent times come under notice, and it may be a surprise to some to find that, with the exception of a few individuals, who in nowise represent the nation, the latest and favorite theories of the world, not only on religion, science, and philosophy, but likewise on government and the social state, have never found open advocates among them. They, so far, const.i.tute the only nation untouched, as yet, by the blight which is pa.s.sing over and withering the life of modern society.

Thus, it may be said that the exiled n.o.bility still rules in Ireland by the recollection of the past, though there can no longer exist a hope of reconstructing an ancient order which has pa.s.sed away forever. The prerogatives once granted to the aristocratic cla.s.ses are now disowned and repudiated on all sides; in Ireland they would be submitted to with joy tomorrow, could the actual descendants of the old families only make good their claims. It must not be forgotten that the Irish n.o.bility, as a cla.s.s, deserved well of their country, sacrificed themselves for it when the time of sacrifice came, and therefore it is fitting that they should live in the memory of the people that sees their traces but finds them not. The dream of finding rulers for the nation from among those who claim to be the descendants of the old chieftains, is a dream and nothing more; but, even still to many Irishmen, it is within the compa.s.s of reality, so deeply ingrained is their conservative spirit, and so completely, in this instance, at least, are they free from the influx of modern ideas.

The Stuarts, then, were supported by the Irish, not merely from religious, but also from national motives, inasmuch as that family was descended from the line of Gaelic kings, and, however unworthy they themselves may have been, their rights were upheld and acknowledged against all comers. But, the Stuarts gone, allegiance was flung to the winds.

The success of Cromwell and his republic was the doom of all prospects of the reunion of the two islands; and the subsequent Revolution of 1688, which commenced so soon after the death of the Protector, left the Irish in the state in which the struggles of four hundred years with the Plantagenets and Tudors had placed and left them in relation to their connection with England--a state of antagonism and mutual repulsion, wherein the Irish nation, the victim of might, was slowly educated by misfortune until the time should come for the open acknowledgment of right.

CHAPTER XII.

A CENTURY OF GLOOM.--THE PENAL LAWS.

William III., of Orange, was inclined to observe, in good faith, the articles agreed upon at the surrender of Limerick, namely, to allow the conquered liberty of worship, citizen rights, so much as remained to them of their property, and the means for personal safety recognized before the departure of Sarsfield and his men.

The lords justices even issued a proclamation commanding "all officers and soldiers of the army and militia, and all other persons whatsoever, to forbear to do any wrong or injury, or to use unlawful violence to any of his Majesty's subjects, whether of the British or Irish nation, without distinction, and that all persons taking the oath of allegiance, and behaving themselves according to law, should be deemed subjects under their Majesties' protection, and be equally ent.i.tled to the benefit of the law."--(Harris, "Life of William.")

This first proclamation not having been generally obeyed, another was published denouncing "the utmost vengeance of the law against the offenders;" and the author above quoted adds that "the satisfaction given to the Irish was a source of lasting grat.i.tude to the person and government of William."

It is even a.s.serted that, not only did the new monarch thus ratify the treaty of Limerick, but that "he inserted in the ratification a clause of the last importance to the Irish, which had been omitted in the draught signed by the lords justices and Sarsfield. That clause extended the benefits of the capitulation to "all such as were under the protection of the Irish army in the counties of Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, and Mayo. A great quant.i.ty of Catholic property depended on the insertion of this clause in the ratification, and the English Privy Council hesitated whether to take advantage of the omission. The honesty of the king declared it to be a part of the articles."

The final confirmation was issued from Westminster on February 24, 1692, in the name of William and Mary.

But the party which had overcome the honest leanings of James I., if he ever had any, and of his son and grandson, was at this time more powerful than ever, and could not consent to extend the claims of justice and right to the conquered. This party was the Ulster colony, which Cromwell's settlement had spread to the two other provinces of Leinster and Munster, and which was confirmed in its usurpation by the weakness of the second Charles. The motives for the bitter animosity which caused it to set its face against every measure involving the scantiest justice toward its fellow-countrymen may be summed up in two words--greed and fanaticism.

Until the time when the first of the Stuarts ascended the English throne, all the successive spoliations of Ireland, even the last under Elizabeth, at the end of the Geraldine war, were made to the advantage of the English n.o.bility. Even the younger sons of families from Lancashire, Cheshire, and Dorsetshire, who "planted" Munster after the ruin of the Desmonds, had n.o.ble blood in their veins, and were consequently subject more or less to the ordinary prejudices of feudal lords. The life of the agriculturist and grazier was too low down in the social scale to catch their supercilious glance. The consequence of which was, that the Catholic tenants of Munster were left undisturbed in their holdings. Instead of the "dues" exacted by their former chieftains, they now paid rent to their new lords.

But the rabble let loose on the island by James I. was afflicted with no such dainty notions as these. To supercilious glances were subst.i.tuted eyes keen as the Israelites', for the "main chance." The new planters, intent only on profit and gain, thought with the French peasant of an after-date, that, for landed estate to produce its full value, "there is nothing like the eye of a master." The Irish peasant was therefore removed from at least one-half the farms of Ulster, and driven to live as best he might among the Protestant lords of Munster. And in order to have an entirely Protestant "plantation," it became inc.u.mbent on the new owners so to frame the legislation as to deprive the Irish Catholics of any possibility of recovering their former possessions. Thus, laws were pa.s.sed declaring null and void all purchases made by "Irish papists."

Who has not witnessed, at some period in his life, the effect produced on the people in his neighborhood by one avaricious but wealthy man, intent only on increasing his property, and profiting by the slavish labor of the poor under his control?

Who has not detested, in his inmost soul, the grinding tyranny of the miser gloating over the hard wealth which he has wrung from the misery and tears of all around him, and who boasts of the cunning shrewdness, the success of which is only too visible in the desolation that encircles him? Imagine such scenes enacted throughout a large territory, beginning with Ulster, spreading thence to Munster and Connaught, and finally through the whole island, and we have an exact picture of the effects of the Protestant "plantation." Each year, almost, of the seventeenth century witnessed fresh swarms of these foreign adventurers settling on the island, interrupted in their operations only by the Confederation of Kilkenny, but multiplying faster and faster after the destruction of that truly national government, until at the time now under our consideration, "Scotch thrift," as it is called, had become the chief virtue of most of the owners of land--Scotch thrift, which is but another name for greed.

It were easy to show, by long details, that this great characteristic of the new "plantation" would suffice to explain that general and terrible pauperism which has since become the striking feature of once-happy Ireland. But only a few words can be allowed.

It is the fanaticism of the new "planters" which will chiefly occupy our attention. These were composed, first, of the Scotch Presbyterians of Knox, whom James I. had dispatched, and afterward of the ranting soldiers and officers of Cromwell's army, more Jew than Christian, since their mouths were ever filled with Bible texts of that particular character wherein the wrath of G.o.d is denounced against the impious and cruel tribes of Palestine. It is doubtful whether the ideas of G.o.d and man, promulgated and spread among the people by Calvin and Knox, have ever been equalled in evil consequences by the most superst.i.tious beliefs of ancient pagans. Let us look well at those teachings. According to them, G.o.d is the author of evil: he issues forth his decrees of election or reprobation, irrespective of merit or demerit; inflicting eternal torments on innumerable souls which never could have been saved, and for whom the Son of G.o.d did not die. What any rational being must consider as the most revolting cruelty and injustice, these men called acts of pure justice executed by the hand of G.o.d. G.o.d saves blindly those whom he saves, and takes them home to his bosom, though reeking with the unrepented and unexpiated crimes of their lives--unexpiable, in fact, on the part of man--merely because they persuade themselves that they are of "the elect."

In that system, man is a mere machine, unendowed with the slightest symptom of free-will, but inflated with the most overbearing pride; deeming all others but those of his sect the necessary objects of the blind wrath of G.o.d, cast off and reprobate from all eternity in the designs of Providence; for whom "the elect" can feel no more pity or affection than redeemed men can for the arch-fiend himself, both being alike redeemless and unredeemed.

No system of pretended religion, invented by the perverted mind of man, under the inspiration of the Evil One, could go further in atrocity than this.

Yet such was the pure, undiluted essence of Calvinism in its beginning. In our times its doctrines have been radically modified, as its adherents could not escape the soothing operations of time and calm reason. But, at the period of which we speak, its absurd and revolting tenets were fresh, and taken religiously to the letter.

The new colonists, therefore, believed, and acted on the belief, that all men outside of their own body were the enemies of G.o.d and had G.o.d for their enemy. What a convenient doctrine for men of an "itching palm! " The papists, in particular, were worse than idolaters, and to "root them out" was only to render a service to G.o.d. In the event of this holy desire not being altogether possible of execution, the nearest approach to the goodly work was to strip them of all rights, and render the life of such reprobates more miserable than the death which was to condemn them to the eternal torments planned out for them in the eternal decrees, and so give them a foretaste here of the life destined for them hereafter.

The reader, then, may understand how the Scotch Presbyterians of the time, overflowing as they were with free and republican ideas as far as regarded their own welfare, when it came to a question of extending the same to their Catholic fellow-men, if they would have admitted the term, scouted such a preposterous and unG.o.dly idea. These latter were unworthy the enjoyment of such benefit. And thus the hoot of Protestant ascendancy, "Protestant liberty and right! " came up as war-cries to stifle out all efforts tending to extend even the most ordinary privileges of the liberty which is man's by nature, to any but Protestants of the same cla.s.s as themselves.

Here a curious reflection, full of meaning, and causing the mind almost to mock at the type of a free const.i.tution, presents itself. The eighteenth century witnessed the development of the British Const.i.tution as now known. It embraced in its bosom all British citizens, raising up the nation to the pinnacle of material prosperity, while at the same time and all through it, whole cla.s.ses of citizens of the British Empire, both in Great Britain and Ireland, were openly, unblushingly, legally, without a thought of mercy or pity--not to mention such an ugly word as logic--denied the protection of the common charter and the common rights.

Under Cromwell the doctrines of Calvin and Knox did not show themselves quite so obtrusively. The officers and soldiers of his armies, in common with their general, thought the Presbyterian Kirk too aristocratic and unbending. They formed a new sect of Independents, now called Congregationalists. But the chief feature of the new religious system became as productive of evil to Ireland as the stern dogmas of Calvin ever could be.

The principle that the Scriptures const.i.tuted the only rule of faith was beginning to bear its fruits. It is needless to remark that Holy Scripture, when abandoned to the free interpretation of all, becomes the source of many errors, as it may be the source of many crimes. The historian and novelist even have ere now frequently told us to what purpose the "Word of G.o.d " was manipulated by Scottish Covenanter and Cromwellian freebooter.

The Covenanter, or freebooter, saw in the antagonists of his "real rebellion" and opposers of the designs of his dark policy, only the enemies of G.o.d and the adversaries of his Providence.

He believed himself divinely commissioned to destroy Catholics and butcher innocent women and children, as the armies of Joshua were authorized to fight against Amalek, and possess themselves of a country occupied by a people whose cruel idolatry was ineradicable, and rendered them absolutely irreconcilable. Thus to the stern and odious tenets of Calvinism the new invaders joined the fanaticism of self-deluded Jews, never having received any commission from the G.o.d whom they blasphemed, yet bearing themselves with all the solemnity of his instruments.

There is consequently nothing to surprise us in the atrocities committed by the Scotch troops in 1641, when they first invaded the island from the north, as little as there is in the numerous ma.s.sacres which first attended the march of the troops of Cromwell, Ireton, and other leaders, and which were only discontinued when the voice of Europe rose up in revolt at the recital, and they themselves became thoroughly convinced that the complete destruction of the people was impossible, and the only next best thing to be done was to export as many as could be exported and reduce the rest to slavery.

Thus did the new colony commence its workings, and it is easy to comprehend how such intensely Protestant doctrines, remaining implanted in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the people who came to make Ireland their home, could not fail to oppose an insurmountable barrier to the fusion of the new and the old inhabitants, and impart a fearful reality to the theory of "Protestant ascendancy" and "Protestant liberty and right "--the liberty and right to oppress those of another creed.

These watchwords form the key to the understanding of all the miseries and woes of Irishmen during the whole of the eighteenth century. We now turn to contemplate the commencement of the workings of this fanatic intolerance which ushered in the century of gloom.