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to the justices the project of a general insurrection, and increased the terror and consternation of the Protestants.(1)

But this intelligence, though it saved Dublin, was obtained too late to enable the government to prevent the intended rebellion. O'Neale and his confederates immediately took arms in Ulster. They began with seizing the houses, cattle, and goods of the unwary English and Scottish settlers, whom they hated on account of their religion, and envied for their riches and prosperity. After rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty began its operations: a universal massacre commenced of the English Protestants, now defenceless, and passively resigned to their inhuman foes, who exercised on them a degree of barbarity unequalled in the history of any other nation, and at which credibility is startled. No age, no sex, no condition was spared: the wife, weeping over her murdered husband, and embracing her helpless children, was butchered with them, and even pierced by the same stroke; all the ties of blood, as well as those of society, were dissolved; and friends, relations, and companions were hunted down by their kindred and connexions, and involved in one common ruin, by those whom they had formerly considered as most sincerely attached to their persons, and who were most near and dear to them!(2) The women, forgetting the character of their sex, emulated the men in the practice of every cruelty, (3) in comparison with many of which, death might be regarded as a light punishment, and even as a happy release from pain, roused by all the varieties of torture.

Amid these frightful enormities, the sacred name of religion resounded on every side; not to arrest the fury of the murderers, but to enforce their blows, and to steel their hearts against every movement of natural or social sympathy. The English Protestants were marked out by the Catholic priests for slaughter, as heretics abhorred of God, and detestable to all holy men. (4) Perfidy, as well as cruelty, was accordingly represented as meritorious: and if any where a number of Englishmen assembled together, in order to defend themselves to the last extremity, and to sweeten death at least by taking revenge on their destroyers, they were disarmed by capitulations and promises of safety, confirmed by the most solemn oaths. But no sooner had they surrendered, than the rebels made them share the same fate with the body of their unhappy countrymen and fellow Protestants. Nor was this all. While death finished the sufferings of each unhappy victim, the bigoted assassins, with joy and exultation, still echoed in his ears, that these dying agonies were but a prelude to torments infinite and eternal. (5)

Such were the barbarities, my dear Philip, by which sir Phelim O'Neale and the Irish in Ulster signalized their rebellion. The English colonies there were totally annihilated; and from Ulster the flames of rebellion suddenly spread over the other three provinces of Ireland, where the English had established settlements. In these provinces, however, though death and slaughter were not uncommon, the Irish pretended to act with more moderation and humanity. But cruel, alas! was their humanity, and unfeeling their moderation. Not content with expelling the English planters from their houses, with despoiling them of their property, seizing their possessions, and wasting their cultivated fields, they stripped them of their very clothes, and turned them out naked and defenceless to all the severities of the season; while the heavens themselves, as if joining in conspiracy against the unhappy sufferers, were armed with cold and tempest, unusual to the climate, and executed what the merciless sword had left unfinished!(6) Even the English of the Pale, who at first pretended to blame the insurrection, and to detest the barbarity with which it was accompanied, in a little time found i the interests of religion to prevail over their regard to their mother-country and their allegiance to their sovereign; and, joining the old Irish, rivalled them in every act of violence and cruelty against the English Protestants.(7)

(1) Sir John Temple's Irish Rebellion. Rushworth, vol. v. (3) Rushworth, vol. v. Hume, chap. iv. p. 407.

(5) Temple, p. 94-188. Whitlocke, p. 47. Rushworth, vol. v.

(2) Temple, ubi sup.
(4) Temple, p. 85.
(6) Temple.

(7) Ibid. Both the English and Irish rebels conspired in one imposture, with which they induced many VOL. II.-G 5

The number of persons who perished by all these barbarities is computed at forty thousand; and the principal army of the rebels, amounting to twenty thousand men, yet thirsting for further slaughter and richer plunder, now threatened Dublin, where the miserable remnant of the English planters had taken refuge.(1)

The king, while preparing to leave Edinburgh, as already observed, had received, by a messenger from the north of Ireland, an account of this dreadful insurrection, which ought to be held in perpetual abhorrence by every lover of humanity.(2) He immediately communicated his intelligence to the Scottish parliament, hoping that the same zeal which had induced the covenanters twice to run to arms, and assemble troops in opposition to the rights of their sovereign, would make them fly to the relief of their Protestant brethren in Ireland, now labouring under the cruel persecutions of the Catholics. But the zeal of the Scots, as is usual among religious sects, was extremely feeble, when neither stimulated by a sense of interest nor by apprehensions of danger. They therefore resolved to make an advantageous bargain for the succours they should send to Ireland; and as the English commons, with which they were already closely connected, could alone fulfil any article that might be agreed on, they sent commissioners to London, to treat with that order in the state to which the sovereign authority was really transferred.(3)

Thus disappointed in his expectation of supplies from the Scots, and sensible of his own inability to subdue the Irish rebels, Charles was obliged to have recourse to the English parliament; to whose care and wisdom he imprudently declared he was willing to commit the conduct and prosecution of the war. The commons, who possessed alone the power of supply, and who had aggrandized themselves by the difficulties and distresses of the crown, seemed to consider it as a peculiar happiness, that the rebellion in Ireland had succeeded, at so critical a period, to the pacification of Scotland. They immediately laid hold of the expression by which the king committed to them the care of that island: and to this usurpation, the boldest they had yet made, Charles was obliged passively to submit; both because of his utter inability to resist, and lest he should expose himself still more to the infamous reproach with which he was already loaded by the Puritans, of countenancing the Irish rebellion.

The commons, however, who had projected farther innovations at home, took no steps towards suppressing the insurrection in Ireland, but such as also tended to give them the superiority in those commotions which they foresaw would soon be excited in England. They levied money under colour of the Irish expedition, but reserved it for enterprises that concerned them more nearly they took arms from the king's magazines, under the same pretext, but kept them with the secret intention of employing them against himself. Whatever law they deemed necessary for their own aggrandizement was voted, under pretence of enabling them to recover Ireland; and if Charles withheld the royal assent, his refusal was imputed to those pernicicus counsels which had at first excited the popish conspiracy in that kingdom, and which still threatened total destruction to the Protestant interest throughout all his dominions.(4) But so great was the confidence of the people in those

of their deluded countrymen; they pretended authority from the king and queen, but chiefly from the latter, for their insurrection; and they affirmed that the cause of their taking up arms was to vindicate royal prerogative, so shamefully invaded by the puritanical parliament. Rushworth, vol. v.

(1) Whitlocke, p. 49. Hume, chap. iv.

(2) Many attempts have been made to throw a veil over the enormities of the Irish massacre. The natural love of independency, the tyranny of the English government, and the rapacity of the English soldiery, have been pleaded as powerful motives for rebellion, and strong incentives to vengeance, in the breasts of the injured and oppressed natives; and much trouble has been taken to prove, that the horrors of religious hate, though provoked by persecution, have been greatly exaggerated. But the vindictive and sanguinary disposition of the Irish Catholics, in latter times, leaves us no room to suppose that the description of the cruelties of their bigoted and barbarous ancestors has been overcharged. The stimulating causes I have not concealed, nor have I concealed their effects. The general slaughter I have reduced as low even as Mr. Brooke, the author of the Trial of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, could wish; but truth forbids me to disguise the atrocious circumstances with which it was accompanied. (4) Clarendon, vol. ii.

(3) Rushworth, vol. v.

hypocritical zealots, whose votes breathed nothing but death and destruction to the rebels, that, although no forces were sent to Ireland, and very little money remitted during the deepest distress of the Protestants, the fault was never imputed to the parliament!

The commons, in the mean time, were employed in framing that famous remonstrance, which was soon after followed by such extraordinary consequences. It was not, as usual, addressed to the king, but was a declared appeal to the people. Besides gross falsehoods and malignant insinuations, it contained an enumeration of every unpopular measure which Charles had embraced, from the commencement of his reign to the calling of the parliament that framed it, accompanied with many jealous prognostics of future grievances; and the acrimony of the style was equal to the harshness of the

matter.

A performance so full of gall, and so obviously intended to excite general dissatisfaction, after the ample concessions made by the crown, was not only regarded by all discerning men as a signal for some farther attacks upon the royal prerogative, but as a certain indication of the approaching abolition of monarchical government in England. The opposition which the remonstrance met with in the house of commons was therefore very great. The debate in regard to it was warmly managed for above fourteen hours; and the vote in its favour was at last carried only by a small majority, and seemingly in consequence of the weariness of the king's party, consisting chiefly of elderly men, many of whom had retired. (1) It was not sent up to the house of peers.

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No sooner was the remonstrance of the commons published, than the king dispersed an answer to it. Sensible of the disadvantages under which he laboured in this contest, Charles contented himself with observing, that, even during the period so much complained of, the people had enjoyed not only a greater share of happiness and prosperity than was to be found in other countries, but perhaps in England during times esteemed the most fortunate. He mentioned the great concessions made by the crown, protested his sincerity in the reformed religion, and blamed the infamous libels every where dispersed against his person, government, and the established church. "If, notwithstanding these," added he, any malignant party shall take heart, and be willing to sacrifice the peace and happiness of their country to their own sinister ends and ambition, under whatever pretence of religion and conscience; if they shall endeavour to lessen my reputation and interest, and to weaken my lawful power and authority; if they shall attempt, by discountenancing the present laws, to loosen the bands of government, that disorder and confusion may break in upon us; I doubt not but God, in his good time, will discover them to me, and that the wisdom and courage of my high court of parliament will join with me in their suppression and punishment."(2) But the ears of the people were too much prejudiced against the king to listen patiently to any thing that he could offer in his own vindication; so that the commons proceeded in their usurpations upon the church and monarchy, and made their purpose of subverting both every day more evident. During the king's residence in Scotland, they had accused thirteen bishops of high-treason, for enacting canons without consent of parliament, though no other method had ever been practised since the foundation of the government; and they now insisted, that the peers, upon this general accusation, should sequester those bishops from their seats in parliament, and commit them to prison. But the majority of the peers, who plainly foresaw the depression of the nobility as a necessary consequence of the farther encroachments of the commons, paid little regard to such an unreasonable request. Enraged at this and other checks, the popular leaders openly told the lords, that they themselves were the representative body of the whole kingdom, and that the peers were nothing but individuals, who held their seats in a particular capacity: and, therefore, "If their lordships will not consent to

(1) Rushworth, vol. v. Nalson, vol. li. Whitlocke, p. 49. Dugdale, p. 71.

(2) Nalson, vol. ii.

the passing of acts necessary for the preservation of the people, the commons, together with such of the lords as are more sensible of the danger, must join together, and represent the matter to his majesty."(1)

This was a plain avowal of those democratical principles that began now to be propagated among the people, and which had long prevailed in the house of commons, as well as a bold attempt to form a party among the lords; and the tide of popularity seized many of the peers, and carried them wide of all the established maxims of civil policy. Of these the most considerable were the earls of Essex and Northumberland, and lord Kimbolton, afterward earl of Manchester; men who, sensible that their credit ran high with the nation, rashly ventured to encourage an enthusiastic spirit, which they soon found they wanted power to regulate or control.

The body of the nobility, however, still took shelter under the throne; and the commons, in order to procure a majority in the upper house, had again recourse to the populace. Amid the greatest security, they affected continual fears of destruction to themselves and the nation:(2) they even ordered halberts to be brought into the hall where they assembled; and thus armed themselves against those desperate conspiracies with which they pretended they were hourly threatened, and the feigned discoveries of which were industriously propagated among the credulous people.(3) Multitudes flocked to Westminster, and insulted the bishops and such of the peers as adhered to the crown. The lords voted a declaration against these tumults, and sent it to the lower house: but the commons refused their concurrence; and to make farther known their pleasure, they ordered several seditious apprentices, who had been seized and committed to prison, to be set at liberty.(4)

Thus encouraged, the populace crowded about Whitehall, and insulted and threatened the king and the royal family. Such audacious behaviour roused the young gentlemen of the Inns of Court, who, with some reduced officers, undertook the defence of their sovereign; and between them and the populace passed frequent skirmishes, which seldom ended without bloodshed. These gentlemen, by way of reproach, gave the fanatical insulters of majesty the name of ROUNDHEADS, on account of the short cropped hair which they wore, while the rabble called their more polished opponents, by reason of their being chiefly mounted on horseback, CAVALIERS; names which became famous during the civil war that followed, and which contributed not a little to inflame the animosity between the parties, during the prelude to that contest, by affording the factious an opportunity to rendezvous under them, and signalize their mutual hate, by the reproachful ideas that were affixed to them by each party, no less than by the political distinctions which they marked.

The Cavaliers, who affected a liberal way of thinking, as well as a gayety and freedom of manners inconsistent with puritanical ideas, were represented by the Roundheads as a set of abandoned profligates, equally destitute of religion and morals; the devoted tools of the court, and zealous abettors of arbitrary power. The Cavaliers, on the other hand, regarded the Roundheads as a gloomy, narrow-minded, fanatical herd, determined enemies to kingly power, and to all distinction of ranks in society. But in these characters, drawn by the passions of the two parties, we must not expect impartiality; both are certainly overcharged. The Cavaliers were, in general, sincere friends to liberty and the English constitution; nor were republican and levelling principles by any means general at first among the Roundheads, though they came at last to predominate. It must however be admitted, that the Cavaliers, in order to show their contempt of puritanical austerity, often carried their convivial humour to an indecent excess; and that the gloomy temper and religious extravagancies of the Roundheads afforded an ample field for the raillery of their facetious adversaries.

In consequence of these distinctions, and the tumults that accompanied

(1) Clarendon, vol. ii.

(3) Nalson, vol. ti.

(2) Journ. 16th and 30th of Nov. 1641.
(4) Id. ibid.

them, the bishops, being easily known by their habits, and exposed to the most dangerous insults from the enraged sectaries, to whom they had long been obnoxious, were deterred from attending their duty in parliament. They, therefore, imprudently protested against all laws, votes, and resolutions, as null and void, which should pass during their forced and involuntary absence. The lords, incensed at this passionate step, desired a conference with the commons on the subject. The opportunity was eagerly seized by the lower house, and an impeachment of high-treason sent up against the bishops, as endeavouring to subvert the fundamental laws, and invalidate the authority of the legislature. They were immediately sequestered from parliament, and committed to custody.(1)

The king, who had hastily approved of the protest of the bishops, was soon after hurried into a greater indiscretion; an indiscretion which may be considered as the immediate cause of the civil war that ensued, and to which, or some similar violence, the popular leaders had long wished to provoke him by their intemperate language. They at last succeeded beyond their most sanguine hopes. Enraged to find that all his concessions but increased the demands of the commons; that the people, who, on his return from Scotland, had received him with expressions of duty and affection, were again roused to sedition; that the blackest calumnies were propagated against him, and a method of address adopted, not only unsuitable to a great prince, but which a private gentleman could not bear without resentment; he began to suspect that his government wanted vigour, and to ascribe these unexampled acts of insolence to his own facility of temper. In this opinion he was encouraged by the queen and her confidants, who were continually reproaching him with indolence, and entreating him to display the majesty of a sovereign; before which, as they fondly imagined, the daring usurpations of his subjects would shrink. (2)

Charles, ever ready to adopt violent counsels, and take advice from people inferior to himself in capacity, gave way to these arguments, and ordered the attorney-general to enter an accusation of high-treason against lord Kimbolton and five commoners; namely, sir Arthur Hazlerig, Hollis, Hambden, Pym, and Strode. The chief articles of impeachment were, that they had traitorously endeavoured to subvert the fundamental laws and government of the kingdom, and to deprive the king of his regal power; that they had endeavoured, by many foul aspersions on his majesty and his government, to alienate the affections of his people, and make him odious to them; that they had invited and encouraged a hostile army to invade the kingdom; that, in order to complete their traitorous designs, they had endeavoured, as far as in them lay, by force and terror, to compel the parliament to join them; and, to that end, had actually raised and countenanced tumults against the king and parliament.(3)

That so bold a measure should have been embraced at such a crisis, was matter of surprise to all men, and of sincere regret to the real friends of the constitution; more especially, as it did not appear that the members accused were any farther criminal than the body of the commons, except perhaps by the exertion of superior abilities. But whatever might be their guilt, it was evident, that while the house of peers was scarce able to maintain its independency, it would never be permitted by the populace, had it even possessed courage and inclination, to pass a sentence which must totally subdue the lower house; these five members being the very heads of the popular party, and the chief promoters of their ambitious projects.

The astonishment excited by this measure was soon, however, transferred to attempts more bold and precipitant. A sergeant-at-arms was sent to the house of commons, to demand, in the king's name, the five members accused. He returned without any positive answer; and messengers were employed to search for them and arrest them, wherever they might be found. The house voted these violent proceedings to be breach of privilege, and com.

(1) Rushworth, vol. v. Clarendon, vol. it.
(3) Whitlocke, p. 53. Rushworth, vol v

(2) Clarendon, vol. II.

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