ny of them to want and misery; yet the country had been so completely subjugated by Elizabeth, and the measures of James were in reality attended by so many sensible advantages, that no disturbances took place.

In the year one thousand six hundred and twentyfive, Charles I. succeeded to the throne of his father James, at which time lord Faulkland, an honest and upright man, but indolent and weak, was lord deputy of Ireland. Charles was by no means adequate to the arduous task of conducting the affairs of the British islands, at a period when the empire was in a state of the greatest fermentation from the religious fanaticism of two opposite contending sects and from a variety of other causes.

At this period no people were more distracted by the spirit of intolerance; no people were more bigotted to and obstinate in their respective opinions; and no people were more unfit to meet the destructive consequences of internal dissension, than the Irish. Aggravated by a series of grievous oppressions, the catholics watched with rancorous impatience for an opportunity to inflict their vengeance on the protestants,

whom they regarded in a two-fold light of abhorrence, as the enemies and destroyers of their civil liberties, and as damned heretics, accursed in the sight of God, to whom they imagined they could perform no service more grateful than that of extirpating them, and with themselves their abominable opinions. These dispositions were much increased by a bull of pope Adrian VIII. exhorting them to suffer death rather than take the oath of supremacy, whereby, he blasphemously asserted, the supreme power over the church was impiously wrested from the hands of the vicar of Christ, in open rebellion against God Almighty himself. The protestants, on the other hand, with a spirit hardly less impious, affecting excessive purity, declared that to tolerate popery would be to render themselves accessary to idolatry and the sinful loss of souls which were swallowed up in the gulf of catholic apostacy. The catholics, on the application of the lord deputy, Faulkland, agreed to support five thousand infantry and five hundred horse for the king's service, at their own charge. They were consequently ordered to be treated with indulgence. The puritans, however monstrated. The deputy continued to exe instructions. The puritans made misrep resentations of his conduct to the cabinet, and he was removed.

cute his

The administration was now lodged in the hands of Ely the chancellor and the earl of Cork, who received the title of lords justices. These governors, without any authority, proceeded immediately to treat the recusants with the utmost severity, threatening all absentees from the protestant church with the heaviest penalties. The king expressed his disapprobation of their proceedings, which augmented the boldness of the popish party. A fraternity of Carmelites assembled a multitude of their followers to hear divine service according to the rites of the catholic church, in one of the most public places in Dublin. On the approach of the chief magistrate and the archbishop with a body of troops to disperse them, they tumultuously attacked and put the soldiery to flight. Charles, provoked by this public outrage, seized fifteen catholic religious houses and a catholic college: the former he retained for his own use; the latter he assigned to the university of Dublin, to be employed as a place of protestant education. The penal laws were executed with the utmost rigour throughout the kingdom; and, by the advice of the lords justices, the army was ordered by the king to be supported out of the fines imposed upon the catholics for non-attendance on the established worship: a measure of great

grievance to the recusants, and attended with but trifling emolument to the crown.

In the year one thousand six hundred and thirtythree commenced the celebrated administration of lord Wentworth, a man of imperious disposition, violent temper, haughty, tyrannical, and absolute, but who. tempered these vices in his constitution by the distinguished wisdom of his conduct.. With a conviction that the people of Ireland were nothing more than the inhabitants of a conquered country, he determined to treat them as mere slaves, and to keep no object in view but the interest of his royal master. On his landing he summoned the council, but contemptu-ously neglected to require the presence of several of the members. This insult was aggravated by his conduct to the rest, whom he kept in waiting full two hours before he deigned to make his appearance; and when he did show himself, he entered in a careless indifferent manner, without condescending to make an apology for the delay. He waved the business for which they had been assembled, and enjoined them with an authoritative air and tone to represent in their several districts the favour offered by the king to such as would compromise for the renewal of their defective

titles to their estates, and to convince the protestants that the support of the royal army was absolutely necessary for their defence. On the next day, when the council was again summoned, they evinced an unwillingness to supply the king's necessities beyond the present year. Wentworth, enraged, proudly informed them that he had summoned them, not from necessity, but from a willingness that they should have an opportunity to display their loyalty and zeal; and that, at the peril of his head, he would undertake to provide for the king's troops amongst them without their assistance. Awed by his lofty demeanour and by the allusion he made to the odious practice of free quarters, they abjectly agreed to furnish another year's provision, to be levied on the protestants, the catholics having provided for the last.

The next step of Wentworth was to summon a parliament, in the lower house of which he hoped to be able to balance the catholic and protestant parties, and to tamper privately with each. The custom of consulting the lords of the Pale,

previously to its being

convened, was contemptuously neglected. When the council appeared disinclined to observe the mode pre

scribed by him with respect to the bills to be transmit