66 taking from the clergy that superfluous wealth, which antiquity as old as Constantine, from the credit of a divine vision, counted " poison in the church," hath ever been most opposed by men, whose righteousness in other matters hath been least observed. He concludes, as his manner is, with high commendation of his own unbiassed rectitude," and believes nothing to be in them that dissent from him, but faction, innovation, and particular designs. Of these repetitions I find no end, no not in his prayer; which being founded upon deceitful principles, and a fond hope that God will bless him in those errors, which he calls "honest," finds a fit answer of St. James: “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss." As for the truth and sincerity, which he prays may be always found in those his declarations to the people, the contrariety of his own actions will bear eternal witness, how little careful or solicitous he was, what he promised or what he uttered there. CHAPTER XII. Upon the Rebellion in Ireland. 198. THE rebellion and horrid massacre of English Protestants in Ireland, to the number of 154,000 in the province of Ulster only, by their own computation; which added to the other three, makes up the total sum of that slaughter in all likehood four times as great; although so sudden and so violent, as at first to amaze all men that were not accessary; yet from whom and from what counsels it first sprung, neither was nor could be possibly so secret as the contrivers thereof, blinded with vain hope, or the despair that other plots would succeed, supposed. For it cannot be imaginable, that the Irish, guided by so many subtle and Italian heads of the Romish party, should so far have lost the use of reason, and indeed of common sense, as, not supported with other strength than their own, to begin a war so desperate and irreconcilable against both England and Scotland at once. All other nations, from whom they could expect aid, were busied to the utmost in their own most necessary concernments. 199. It remains then that either some authority, or some great assistance promised them from England, was that whereon they chiefly trusted. And as it is not difficult to discern from what inducing cause this insurrection first arose, so neither was it hard at first to have applied some effectual remedy, though not prevention. And yet prevention was not hopeless, when Strafford either believed not, or did not care to believe, the several warnings and discoveries thereof, which more than once by papists and by friars themselves were brought him; besides what was brought by deposition, divers months before that rebellion, to the Archbishop of Canterbury and others of the king's council; as the declaration of "no addresses" declares. But the assurance which they had in private, that no remedy should be applied, was, it seems, one of the chief reasons that drew on their undertaking. And long it was before that assurance failed them; until the bishops and popish lords, who, while they sat and voted, still opposed the sending aid to Ireland, were expelled the house. 200. Seeing then the main excitement and authority for this rebellion must needs be derived from England, it will be next inquired, who was the prime author. The king here denounces a malediction temporal and eternal, not simply to the author, but to the "malicious author" of this bloodshed: and by that limitation may exempt, not himself only, but perhaps the Irish rebels themselves, who never will confess to God or man that any blood was shed by them maliciously; but either in the Catholic cause, or common liberty, or some other specious plea, which the conscience, from grounds both good and evil, usually suggests to itself: thereby thinking to elude the direct force of that imputation, which lies upon them. 201. Yet he acknowledges, "it fell out as a most unhappy advantage of some men's malice. against him:" but indeed of most men's just suspicion, by finding in it no such wide departure or disagreement from the scope of his former counsels and proceedings. And that he himself was the author of that rebellion, he denies both here and elsewhere, with many imprecations, but no solid evidence. What on the other side against his denial hath been affirmed in three kingdoms, being here briefly set in view, the reader may so judge as he finds cause. VOL. II. N 202. This is most certain, that the king was ever friendly to the Irish papists, and in his third year, against the plain advice of parliament, like a kind of pope, sold them many indulgences for money; and upon all occasions advancing the popish party, and negotiating underhand by priests, who were made his agents, engaged the Irish papists in a war against the Scots Protestants. To that end he furnished them, and had them trained in, arms, and kept them up, either openly or underhand, the only army in his three kingdoms, till the very burst of that rebellion. The summer before that dismal October, a committee of most active papists, all since in the head of that rebellion, were in great favour at Whitehall; and admitted to many private consultations with the king and queen. And to make it evident that no mean matters were the subject of those conferences, at their request he gave away his peculiar right to more than five Irish counties, for the payment of an inconsiderable rent. They departed not home till within two months before the rebellion; and were either from the first breaking out, or soon after, found to be the chief rebels themselves. 203. But what should move the king besides his own inclination to popery, (7) and the pre (71) That Charles I. should have been favourably disposed towards the Roman Catholics, is not at all surprising, since his wife, by whom he was governed, was a most bigoted papist, and, in the face of the country, acted so many disgraceful fooleries, at the command of her confessors, that she drew upon herself the valence of his queen over him, to hold such frequent and close meetings with a committee of Irish papists in his own house, while the parliament of England sat unadvised with, is declared by a Scots author, and of itself is clear enough. The parliament at the beginning of that summer, having put Strafford to death, imprisoned others his chief favourites, and driven the rest to fly, the king, who had in vain tempted both the Scots and the English army to come up against the parliament and city, finding no compliance answerable to his hope from the Protestant armies, betakes himself last to the Irish; who had in readiness an army of eight thousand papists, which he had refused so often to disband, and a committee here of the same religion. With them, who thought the time now come, (which to bring about they contempt of every thinking man. Mr. D'Israeli, partial as he is to every thing bearing the name of king or queen, denominates them "degrading penances," and very honestly inserts them in his work. "One of the most flagrant, he says, is alluded to in our history. This was a barefoot pilgrimage to Tyburn, where, one morning, under the gallows, on which so many jesuits had been executed as traitors to Elizabeth and James I., she knelt and prayed to them as martyrs and saints, who had shed their blood in defence of the Catholic cause." Another example is quoted out of a MS. letter of those times, from Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead, July, 1626. (Harl. MSS. No. 383.) "The priests also made her dabble in the dirt in a foul morning from Somersethouse to St. James's, her Luciferian confessor riding along by her in his coach! They have made her to go barefoot, to spin, to eat her meat out of dishes, to wait at the table of servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances. And if they dare thus insult over the daughter, sister, and wife of so great kings, what slavery would they not make us, the people, undergo !" (Curiosities of Literature, iii. 404, 405.) This pilgrimage to Tyburn, |