1660. and the persons of those who under the parliamentary commission then exercised the powers of government, which continued in the form the commissioners thought most agreeable to the presbyterian system, until the restoration of Charles II. when Monck was declared lord-lieutenant of Ireland; soon after which, the King was proclaimed at Dublin, and in every other part of the kingdom.

Persevering loyalty of

The cause of royalty had been publickly supported the Irish. in Ireland three years longer than in any other part of his Majesty's dominions. It was, therefore, natural that the restoration of the Stuart family to the throne should be more sensibly felt by the Irish, who had survived the successive disasters of war, famine, pestilence, and proscriptive exile into Connaught and Clare, than by any other of his Majesty's subjects. The duration and severity of the sufferings of the Irish for the cause of royalty were unprecedented, as they were unmerited. The perseverance of these martyrs to royalty, it would be natural to suppose, would have moved

luctant Broghill to acquiesce in the attempt. In consequence of which, when Broghill went to England to congratulate his Majesty upon his return, he was received by Charles with a stern coldness, for which he could not at first account, having been apprized of the gracious reception of Coote. He, however, effectually counteracted the first impressions of the King, by conveying to his Majesty, through his brother Lord Shannon, the original letter of Sir Charles Coote to him, which contained the following words: "Remember, my Lord, that you first put me upon the design, "and I beseech you, forsake me not in that which you have first "put me upon, which was to declare for King and parliament." (Budg. Mem. 87.)

the sympathy and challenged the justice of the re- 1660. stored monarch. But Charles was a Stuart, and the Irish were his most staunch, persevering, and therefore suffering friends. If ever Ireland had a call of gratitude upon the crown of England, it was at the restoration of Charles II.; and if any period since the invasion of Henry II. be distinguishable for the sufferings of the Irish nation, it was the moment when Charles II. immolated them to the treachery and rapacity of his own and his father's enemies. Such was, however, the force of prejudice against the Irish, who resisted the usurpation of Cromwell almost to extirpation, and spent their last blood and treasure in supporting the royal cause, that by the first legislators after the restoration, the rebellious regicides were established and confirmed in the wages of their sanguinary usurp. ation. Thus basely and inhumanly were the crimes of one kingdom compromised by the forfeitures of the other.

"created Earl

Coote Earl

trath.

Of all the leading men in Ireland, none had given Broghill more virulently into the usurpation of Cromwell than of Orrery, Broghill and Coote. During the whole Interregnum of Monthey continued presidents of Munster and Connaught; they had been the occasion of taking away more lives in cold blood from the year 1641, than any other men in Ireland, if we except the orders of Cromwell at Drogheda and Wexford. They turned, as we have seen, with the tide ; and Charles, in the full glow of his family passion for rewarding his enemies, created Broghill Earl of Orrery, and Coote Earl of Mon

1661. trath, and appointed them lords justices of Ireland*.

Combination of pow

the Irish caholics.

Sir Maurice Eustace (an old and particular friend er against of the Marquis of Ormond, says Carte) was at the same time, by the recommendation of Ormond, made lord high chancellor. By the advice, management, and contrivance of these four persons, (all determined enemies to the Irish catholics) was the whole settlement of that kingdom conducted., Commissioners were sent by this party to the King to forward their grand design, which was to call a new parliament, into which no catholic either peer or commoner should be admitted. It was their intent to grant a general pardon and indemnity to all protestants, to secure all the Cromwellians in their possessions, and effectually to prevent the Irish from recovering their estates.

Mecting of

The parliament, which was convened on the eighth liament un- of May, 1661, was so constituted †, as to command

the first par

der Charles

II. and how constituted.

"These two earls had been, says Clarendon, eminently against the King: but upon this turn, when all other powers were down, were eminently for him. But the King had not then power to chuse any, against whom some as material objections might not be made. With them there were too many others, upon whom honours were conferred; upon some, that they might do no harm, who were thereby enabled to do the more." Clar. Life, Vol. II. p. 219.

+ This House of Commons consisted of 260 members, of which all but 61 were burgesses and Cromwell had filled all the corporations throughout the kingdom with his own creatures. In the House of Peers there were about twenty-one catho

by a decided majority whatever measure might be 1661. proposed for carrying these expedients into effect: but in order the more surely to effectuate their purpose, and to prevent even a debate on the question, all catholic members, though not at that time disqualified from sitting and voting in parliament, were excluded by the self-assumed power of each house: the commons having passed a resolution" that no member should be qualified to sit in their house, but such as had taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy:" and the speaker of the house of peers (Bramhall, Archbishop of Armagh) having proposed another, which passed their house," that all the members thereof should receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper from his Grace's own hands," ·

preventing

lics from

With the like view of preventing the Irish catholics Modes of from sending over agents to England to oppose or the cathocounteract the state commissioners, as they were then redress. called, who were soliciting the English parliament to except the Irish catholics out of the act of oblivion and general pardon, the convention at Dublin put in execution all the severe laws and ordinances made by the usurper, by which the catholics were prevented from going from one province to another to transact their business. Such as had the more considerable estates were imprisoned: all their letters to and from the capital were intercepted: the gentry were forbidden to meet, and thereby deprived of the means

lic and seventy-two protestant peers, besides twenty-four bishops their list, as it stood in 1688, may be seen Appendix, No. XXXIX.

1661. of agreeing upon agents to take care of their interests, and of an opportunity to represent their grievances at the foot of the throne. The stale device of contriving new popish conspiracies and rebellions was resorted to, in order to alarm the English parliament into the measures of excluding the Irish catholics from the general pardon*, and quieting protestant possessions in Ireland, Charles published a proclamation for apprehending and prosecuting all Irish rebels, (a term now generally adopted as synonymous with Irish catholics) and commanding, that adventurers, soldiers, and others, who were possessed of any lands, should not be disturbed in their possessions, until legally evicted, or his Majesty, by advice of parliament, should take further order therein. Carte,. Leland, and indeed all our historians agree, that the most aggravated, extravagant, and unfounded reports against the Irish were brought to England, there received with avidity, and circulated with every accumulation of inventive selfishness and malice, by incredible numbers of projectors, suitors, sufferers, claimants, solicitors, pretenders, and petitioners, who thronged the court, and looked to the Irish forfeitures as the sure fund for realizing their various speculations. Such, however,

*These reports were artfully and maliciously set afloat from the circumstance, which certainly had then frequently occurred, of persons, deprived of their estates by the usurpers of the regal power, attempting to re-enter their former possessions, without the tedious, costly, and precarious process of law, the old possessors having thus generally ejected the Cromwellian intruders throughout England. Car. Orm, vol. II. p. 398.