HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



y, and in order to raise money for a second 

 pedition against the Scots, was reduced to the 

 :cessity of calling an English parliament the first 

 at had met for eleven years. It met (April 13), 

 but, without listening for a moment to a request 

 for subsidies, began to discuss the national griev- 

 ances. Finding parliament quite intractable, the 

 king dissolved it (May 5), and endeavoured to 

 obtain supplies in other quarters. A convocation 

 of the clergy granted him ^20,000 per annum for 

 the next six years. The nobility and gentry 

 advanced ^300,000 ; but when the city of London 

 as asked for a loan of ,200,000, it absolutely 

 "used. 



The Scots did not, on this occasion, wait to be 

 attacked by the king, but in August 1640 marched 

 into the north of England, in the expectation of 

 being supported in their claims by the English 

 people in general. A victory gained by them at 

 Newburnford over Lord Conway, and their taking 

 possession of Newcastle, together with the mani- 

 fest disaffection of his own troops, made it neces- 

 sary that Charles should once more resort to 

 negotiation. It was agreed at a council of peers 

 that all the present dissensions should be referred 

 to the parliaments of the two countries, the Scot- 

 tish army being in the meantime kept up on an 

 English weekly subsidy of 5600 till such time as 

 they were satisfied with the state of their affairs. 



THE LONG PARLIAMENT REBELLION 

 IRELAND. 



IN 



The English parliament met in November 1640, 

 and immediately commenced a series of meas- 

 ures for effectually and permanently re-establishing 

 constitutional liberty. The first acts of the 

 parliament had little or no immediate reference 

 to Scotland. The Earl of Strafford was im- 

 peached of treason against the liberties of the 

 people, and executed (May 12, 1641), notwith- 

 standing a solemn promise made to him by the 

 king that he should never suffer in person or 

 estate. Archbishop Laud was impeached and 

 imprisoned, but reserved for future vengeance. 

 The Star Chamber, the High Commission, and 

 another court called the Council of the North, were 

 abolished, and the levies of ship-money were 

 declared to be illegal. The remaining ministers 

 of the king only saved themselves by flight. Some 

 of the judges were imprisoned and fined. The 

 abolition of Episcopacy was taken into considera- 

 tion. The Catholics fell under a severe persecu- 

 tion ; and even the person of the queen, who 

 belonged to this faith, was not considered safe. 



It was not till August 1641, when the English 

 parliament had gained many of its objects, that 

 they permitted the treaty of peace with Scotland 

 to be fully ratified. They then gratified the troops 

 not only with their full pay, but with a vote of 

 no less a sum than ,300,000 besides, of which 

 .80,000 was paid down, as an indirect way of 

 furnishing their party with the means of future 

 resistance. The king, on his part, also took 

 measures for gaining the attachment of this for- 

 midable body of soldiery, and of the Scottish 

 nation in general. In Edinburgh, which he 

 visited in August, he squared his conduct care- 

 fully with the rigour of Presbyterian manners, 

 and in parliament he was exceedingly com- 

 plaisant, ratifying all the acts of the preceding 

 62 



irregular session ; and yielding up the right of 

 appointing the state-officers of Scotland. The 

 men who had acted most conspicuously against 

 him in the late insurrections now became his 

 chief counsellors. He created General Leslie 

 Earl of Leven ; while the Earl of Argyll, who 

 had been the chief political leader of the Cove- 

 nanters, was made a marquis. At the same time, 

 however, he kept up a correspondence with a 

 royalist party which had been embodied by the 

 Earl of Montrose, who was now suffering confine- 

 ment in Edinburgh Castle for his exertions in 

 favour of the king. 



The policy already mentioned, by which large 

 portions of Ireland were depopulated, and then 

 planted with colonies of English and Scotch 

 settlers, had been continued during the reign of 

 Charles by Strafford, appointed Viceroy in 1633, 

 who, besides, had imposed arbitrary taxes, and 

 levied them by military force; had established 

 monopolies for his own benefit ; and had forbidden 

 any person to leave the island without his per- 

 mission. Penal laws were established against the 

 profession of Catholicism, and a court of Star 

 Chamber was instituted to carry these into 

 execution. 



The Irish Catholics, who formed a large 

 majority of the nation, only waited an opportunity 

 to rebel, and were stimulated thereto by the 

 example of the Scotch Covenanters. On Straf- 

 ford's departure, in 1640, to attend the king in 

 England, a conspiracy, involving most of the 

 country without the Pale, and including many 

 persons within it, was formed, chiefly under the 

 direction of a gentleman named Roger Moore, 

 who possessed many qualities calculated to endear 

 him to the people. The 23d of October 1641, 

 being a market-day, was fixed on for the capture 

 of Dublin Castle. During the previous day, nothing 

 had occurred to alarm the authorities. In the 

 evening of the 22d, the conspiracy was accident- 

 ally discovered, and measures were taken to save 

 Dublin ; but a civil war broke out next morning 

 in Ulster, and speedily spread over the country. 



The design of Sir Phelim O'Neill and the other 

 leaders of this insurrection is believed to have 

 been simply political. They could not, however, 

 allay the hatred with which the Catholics looked 

 upon their adversaries ; and a spirit of revenge 

 broke out among their followers, which was 

 aggravated to cruel outrage when they heard that 

 the conspiracy was discovered in Dublin. The 

 spirit of retaliation was let loose, and political 

 wrongs, unfeelingly inflicted, were, as is often the 

 case, ferociously avenged. The massacre, some- 

 times with frightful tortures, of between forty and 

 fifty thousand Protestants, of all ages and sexes, 

 held forth an awful lesson of the effects which 

 oppressive laws produce on the human passions. 

 This rebellion, which Charles was blamed with 

 secretly fostering, continued for many years ; and 

 it is worthy of note that the Scottish Covenanters, 

 themselves so recently emancipated from a re- 

 straint upon their consciences, contributed 10,000 

 troops to assist in restoring a similar restraint 

 upon the Irish ! 



THE CIVIL WAR. 



It was generally allowed by moderate people 

 that, in the autumn of 1641, if the king could have 



Ml 



