XXIX. CHAP. evidence falfe and malicious. Fitzgerald, a protestant Oliver Plunket, the Romish archbishop of Armagh, met with different fortune. He had lived quiet, detached from political intrigues, recommending a peaceable fubmiffion to government, and had even exerted his fpiritual authority to confine the turbulent Peter Talbot within the duties of his profeffion. Accused by some profligates of his inferior clergy, he was brought to London, where their story was found fo inconfiftent, that, even in those times of paffionate credulity, the jury could not find a bill against him. But reinforced by fome new accomplices, the informers framed again their accufation, charging him with having obtained his place on the exprefs compact of raifing seventy thousand men in Ireland by the contributions of the Romish clergy, whofe whole revenues would be infufficient for the equipment of even one regiment. They swore that this army was to be joined by twenty thousand men from France, who were to land at Carlingford, a place impracticable for fuch a debarkation. The unfortunate prelate, whose witnesses were detained by contrary winds and other accidents, was executed for a confpiracy which he explicitly XXIX. explicitly denied at his death, with the most folemn CHAP. difavowal of all equivocation; and which no man acquainted with the circumftances of Ireland, as he remarked, could have believed, even if he had folemnly acknowledged it in his last moments. Neither difcouraging "informations, nor encouraging violence in the profecution of them, Ormond fteered fo cautious and steady a course, that, after feveral acquittals on the clearest evidence, the credit of the plot declined; and men, relieved from their terrors, applied their minds to pursuits of industry. The fortitude of the duke was feverely tried by the death of the generous Offory, of whofe fignal merit he retained fo lively a fenfe, that he declared, "he would not exchange his dead fon for any living fon in Christendom." Repairing to court, at the 1682. instance of the duke of York, and leaving the administration two years in the hands of a deputy, the earl of Arran, he folicited in vain, when he prepared to return, for the convention of an Irish parliament. Dangerous measures appear to have been then concerted without awakening his fufpicion. A commission of grace was iffued for the remedy of defective titles in Ireland, planned by the duke of York; and the proteftants had good reason to conclude, that the purpose of it was to discover what advantages might be taken to deprive proteftants of their poffeffions, and to restore them to the Irish. A fcheme had been formed for putting the whole power in Ireland into the hands of the catholics; and, when Ormond had returned to his government, he received a letter from the king, informing him of the expediency F 2 1684. XXIX. CHAP. diency of many and great alterations in both the civil and military departments, and of his refolution to appoint lord Rochefter chief governor. This chief governor was to be totally excluded from the military department, the entire command of which was to be committed to a lieutenant-general, Richard Talbot, the known partizan of the Romanists. While Rochester delayed to take poffeffion of his unenviable office, the king feemed again difpofed to change his measures and counsellors, and all arrangements feemed for a time fufpended, when fuddenly, by the death of Charles, on the fixth of February 1685, a turn most decided was given to affairs, attended for fome time with lamentable, and afterwards with happy and important confequences. CHAP. XXX. English affairs-New administration in Ireland-Violences of the catholics-Tories and informers-Violent proceedings of the king-Violences of Tyrconnel-Tyrconnel lord-deputy-His arrangements-New model of corporations-Attempts on the University-State of the country A quarrel among the catholics—— Attempt against the acts of fettlement-Rejoicings of the catholics-Imprisonment of the officers of Chrift Church-Agitations on the news of the prince of Orange's preparations—Alarm of massacre, XXX. affairs. CHARLES the fecond had afcended the throne CHAP. with a cordial affection of his fubjects almost univerfal; yet mutual jealoufies began foon to operate; English and the English commons appear to have been fomewhat too frugal in the granting of fupplies to the king's neceffities in the beginning of his reign. In their bill of non-importation of Irish cattle, the injuftice and impolicy of which his good fenfe would have prevented, they made an offenfive and imprudent display of their power, by forcing his affent contrary to his declared refolution. Perhaps the moft blameless conduct on their fide might not have prevented a scheme for the establishment of popery and XXX. CHAP and defpotic monarchy, formed by the duke of York who was a most bigoted and zealous Romanist, and the king who was privately, but lefs violently, attached to the fame religion. For the attainment of this end, for which the cabal made ftrenuous, and even premature exertions, the affistance of Lewis the fourteenth, the most powerful monarch in Europe, was engaged by a fecret treaty. A preparatory step, judged neceffary by the two confederate monarchs, was the deftruction of the Dutch commonwealth, from which alone, in cafe of civil war, the proteftants of England could expect affiftance against the forces of their own prince and his French auxiliars. So prodigious were the exertions of the Dutch, who were affailed by the united powers of England and France in 1672, that the kings were fruftrated in this part of their plan, and Charles was neceffitated to conclude a peace. Before this pacification, the king, when affairs had come to a dangerous crifis between him and the commons, had prudently receded from another preparatory measure, an act of prerogative, by which he suspended the laws in religious matters. Concluding, from this want of refolution in Charles, that the scheme of defpotifm would prove abortive, and dreading impeachments from the commons when their power should prevail, the earl of Shaftesbury, the chief member of the cabal, refolved immediately to change fides, and to atone for all his violences in favour of monarchy by like violences in oppofition to it. Against the duke of York, who was the next heir to the crown, as Charles had no legitimate children, |