strance of parliament, had been received with particular favour by the popular party, who expected considerable assistance from them in the execution of the favourite design then in agitationthe overthrow of the earl of Strafford. Their public instructions directed them to apply to the king only for redress; but they were privately ordered to address themselves to the English house of commons, a power then growing every day stronger than the throne. This step alarmed the earl of Strafford, who perceived in it the first symptom of his danger. By the advice of Charles, however, who assured him he still had power to save him, he fatally, contrary to the dictates of his own judgment and the urgent solicitations of his friends, repaired to London and gave himself up to the parliament, by which he was impeached, committed to custody, and afterwards ordered to suffer death as a traitor. Before the execution of Strafford, the king made a speech to the house of lords, in which he assured them he was well convinced the earl had been guilty of high misdemeanours, but that he could by no means. think he had imagined high treason. Notwithstanding this acknowledgment of the earl's misconduct, however, so infatuated was Charles with his favourite's system, and so implicated was he himself in all the acts of his administration, that, by his advice, he appointed his kinsman sir Henry Wandesworth to succeed him in the lord lieutenancy. On the death of Wandesworth, which quickly followed his appointment, he deputed sir William Parsons and lord Dillon, another relative of Strafford, as lords justices of the kingdom: but finding Dillon was exceedingly disagreeable to the Irish, he afterwards cancelled the commission, and appointed sir John Borlase in his stead. Immediately on the commencement of the exercise of their functions, these ministers proceeded to re-establish throughout the kingdom the former moderation in the execution of government, mollifying the rigorous measures of Strafford, and adapting their conduct to the laws and established customs of the realm.

About this time Charles began to be seriously alarmed at the symptoms of disaffection which began to appear in Ireland. Conscious of the repeated instances of insincerity with which he had treated them, he attempted by a last effort to recover

the affections of his injured subjects. In a letter he directed the lords justices to publish to the people all the royal graces he had formerly promised them; and to assure them that they should henceforth more particularly enjoy his favour and protection. Both houses of parliament returned thanks to his majesty for the publication of his graces, and prayed that the present parliament should not be dissolved nor prorogued until laws should be prepared for the redress of all grievances. As the chancellor Bolton had insinuated a doubt, on a charge against him, whether, since the enacting of a law, called the law of Poynings, the Irish house of lords had power of judicature in capital cases, both houses joined in a solemn protestation declaring that the court of parliament ever was and is the supreme judicatory of the realm. After the transaction of this and some other business, both houses of parliament adjourned, during which recess the grand rebellion of one thousand six hundred and forty-one broke out.

CHAPTER V.

THE hatred of the old Irish to the English for what they esteemed the usurpation of their country; the grievous and oppressive measures which still continued to be enforced by the commissioners and agents of plantation; the dispossessing of private property by chicane and the revival of obsolete claims of the crown; the insincerity and faithless conduct of the king, who evaded the fulfilment of his promises to the recusants; the insolent and impolitic behaviour of the new adventurers, who treated the whole of the natives of Ireland, both of Irish and English blood, as traiterous and disaffected slaves, and selfishly represented them as such to the government; the violent doctrines of ecclesiastics educated on the Continent, who laboured with unwearied assiduity to instil into the minds of the people the most deep-rooted hatred to heretical opinions and an heretical government; the secret and cautious proceedings of the puritans, who by a series of aggressions, provoked the recusants frequently to take arms, in order that they might become obnoxious to administration, which, by treating them with rigour, might be deprived of the advantages resulting from catholic loyalty, during that contest with the power of the crown which they themselves meditated; all contributed to foster the latent spark of disaffection which now exploded with such destructive effects. The government, lulled into a fatal security by the many false rumours of conspiracies, plots, treasons, and insurrections, which from time to time continued to be spread abroad, took no precautionary steps to meet the impending danger. Even the intelligence transmitted from the British cabinet that great numbers of Irish ecclesiastics had poured into the

kingdom from Spain, and that it was the opinion of the cabinet that a rebellion would soon take place, appears not to have roused the lords justices from the unaccountable lethargy into which they had sunk.

The conspirators, the principal of whom were Roger Moore, head of a reduced family in Queen's County, a penetrating and judicious man, and possessed of a most insinuating address; Connor Macguire, baron of Enniskillen; sir Phelim O'Nial (or O'Neal, as the word is now written,) grandson of the famous rebel earl of Tyrone; Turlagh O'Neal, brother to sir Phelim ; sir James Dillon; Philip Reily; Hugh Mac-Mahon; Richard Plunket; and many others of inferior note; having prepared every thing for the execution of the plot, and raised a considerable body of troops under pretence of employing them in the service of Spain, appointed the twenty-third day of October, one thousand six hundred and forty-one, as the most proper time for rising universally in arms. Moore, Byrne, and Macguire were to surprise the castle of Dublin with two hundred men, while a considerable number were to follow for their support, and to take possession of the city. The fortresses in Ulster were to be seized by different chieftains, who, after having accomplished their several tasks, were to form a junction with sir Phelim, and under his direction to march with their united forces to Dublin. On the twenty-second of October, the day before the intended surrection, Moore and the other chieftains appointed to take the castle assembled in the capital, where they found only eighty of their men. They spent the day, however, flattering themselves that the remainder of their number would join them before the moment of action; and, falling on their knees, with much solemnity drank success to their enterprise. On this critical evening a full discovery of the plot was made to the lords justices, by a servant of sir John Clotworthy, named Owen O'Connolly, and the discovery was quickly followed by the arrest of Mac-Mahon and Macguire, who were afterwards hanged as traitors at Tyburn. Moore, Byrne, and the other leaders effected their escape. The castle, however, notwithstanding this discovery, might still have been taken, as it was defended by only about fifty men armed with halberts, had the conspirators persevered in their

determination. It contained fifteen hundred barrels of gunpowder, an immense quantity of bullets and matches, ten thousand stand of arms, and thirty-five pieces of cannon, fully equipped. The arrival of sir Francis Willoughby, governor of the fort of Galway, a brave and experienced officer, tended to soothe the apprehensions of the citizens. By his advice the lords justices and council retired within the castle; with the defence of which he was entrusted, together with that of the city. A proclamation was issued on the twenty-third, announcing the discovery of a most treasonable and detestable conspiracy, imagined by the ill affected Irish papists throughout the kingdom; and exhorting all friends to government to provide for their own defence and that of the state. The catholic lords and gentlemen of the Pale, excepting to the general terms of this proclamation, immediately waited on the lords justices and council; and, expressing their abhorrence of, and innocence in, taking any part in the revolt, demanded arms for their own defence and the annoyance of the insurgents. These were refused coldly, on pretence of a scarcity. On the twenty-ninth, however, the lords justices and council issued an explanatory proclamation, intimating that by Irish papists they meant the old Irish of Ulster, and not the English catholics of the Pale, or throughout the rest of the realm. The jealousy of the justices, who were strongly attached to the puritanic party, prevented the catholics of the north from suppressing the insurgents; and they are with great appearance of justice suspected to have even checked every exertion for that purpose, in the base and dishonourable hope of profiting by the forfeitures of those who, emboldened by their apparent want of support, might join in the rebellion.

Meantime the rebels in Ulster had risen with alacrity at the appointed time; and with such spirit and activity did they push forward their operations, that in the course of eight days they had acquired full possession of the counties of Tyrone, Monaghan, Longford, Leitrim, Fermanagh, Caven, Donegal, and Derry, and part of the counties of Armagh and Down. They confined their attacks every where to the English settlements, and, as had been previously agreed on, left the Scottish planters for the present unmolested. The English were the objects of