The real or fancied grievances of Loftus and Mountnorris excited far more indignation in England than the wrongs of the native population; but it is not by his dealings with a few powerful and corrupt functionaries, but by his treatment of the mass of the Irish people that Wentworth’s administration must be judged. Of his action in the matter of the Connaught plantation it is impossible to speak too severely. In other respects his government was just and equitable; too equitable, indeed, to secure the approbation of the colonists, who conceived that they had an inalienable right to trample upon the older inhabitants. On the subject of religious liberty his views, while by no means consonant to modern notions of justice, were, on the whole, in advance of those of his contemporaries.

Bacon, in the preceding reign, had recommended toleration, not as a thing desirable in itself, but as a temporary expedient which the peculiar circumstances of Ireland required.^[131] Wentworth’s view was substantially the same as Bacon’s. He undoubtedly looked forward to the ultimate suppression of every religion other than that legally established. But he was far too wise a man to have recourse to violent and indiscriminate coercion. “I am not ignorant,” he wrote to Cottington, “how much every good Englishman ought, as well in reason of state as conscience, to desire that kingdom were well reduced to conformity of religion with us here, as indeed shutting up the postern gate to many a dangerous inconvenience and mischief. But,” he added, “it is a great business, hath many a root lying deep and far within the ground, which would be first thoroughly opened before we judge what height it may shoot up into, when it shall feel itself once struck at, to be loosened and pulled up.”^[132] “It were too much,” he says in another letter, “at once to distemper them by bringing plantations upon them and disturbing them in the exercise of their religion, so long as it be without scandal; and so indeed very inconsiderate, as I conceive, to move in this latter till that former be fully settled, and by that means the Protestant party become by much the stronger, which in truth as yet I do not conceive it to be.”^[133] Under his government, therefore, the priests performed their functions without interference; and this modified tolerance was afterwards made a prominent grievance by the Puritan party.^[134]

There was another section of the community which Wentworth was not disposed to treat with equal leniency. As has been already mentioned, a great number of the northern benefices were at this time filled by ministers who refused to conform to the established ritual. During the reign of James these persons had occupied an extremely anomalous position, being unmolested by the Government, but not enjoying a legal toleration. To Wentworth the sectaries, as they were called, were at least as odious as the Catholics; and the bishops whom he promoted exerted themselves for the suppression of irregularities at which their more tolerant predecessors had connived. Bramhall, who had accompanied the Lord Deputy to Ireland as his chaplain, and had subsequently been advanced to the see of Derry, and Henry Lesley, Bishop of Down and Connor, were especially active in the persecution of the Nonconformists.^[135] Clergymen who refused to subscribe the new canons were deprived of their cures, and, in many cases, driven from the country. Some fled to Scotland, others to New England. The majority made a pretence of submission, while secretly animating their flocks to resistance. After the riots which broke out in Edinburgh in 1637 the situation became still more critical. Of the inhabitants of Ulster a large majority were Scotchmen, and of the Scotchmen in Ulster at least nine in ten were Presbyterians. Between these men and their kindred in the western shires of Scotland a constant correspondence was maintained—partly by itinerant preachers, partly by persons engaged in trade, and partly by landowners who possessed estates in both countries. It is not, therefore, surprising that the success of the Scotch insurgents should have produced important results in Ireland. The Puritan party, who had lately cowered beneath the tyranny of the bishops, now adopted a firmer and more menacing attitude; openly proclaimed their sympathy with the Covenanters; and began to express a hope of obtaining concessions similar to those which the Government had been compelled to make in Scotland.^[136] In July, 1638, Charles, realising that a peaceful accommodation with the Scots was no longer possible, despatched a secret agent to Wentworth to inquire what assistance he might expect from Ireland in the approaching struggle. The Lord Deputy’s reply was not encouraging. During the past four years the Irish army had been greatly improved in quality; but it was still very inadequate in point of numbers. It amounted in all only to two thousand foot and six hundred horse, “which, in a time better secured, is rather too little than otherwise to ascertain the peace and tranquillity of this government and subject.” The plantations in Connaught and other parts of the kingdom, were still unsettled, “and the people more apt, consequently, to stir upon so great an alteration as these will bring amongst them than at another time.” There were also “great numbers of Scotch in Ulster, undoubtedly of the same affections your Majesty finds in Scotland, and by so much the more diligently to be attended, by how much the nearer they are to the mutual encouragement and succours they may communicate, the one to the other.” Under these circumstances to withdraw any part of his small forces would be “a means to raise and spread the flame, to have the fire here also kindled, whilst they find us not in so full power to contain them, as now by God’s blessing I conceive we are.” He thought, however, that it would be possible to raise some additional levies, “whereof as many as may be to be English. For, howbeit the Irish might do very good service, being a people removed from the Scottish, as well in affections as religion; yet it is not safe to train them up more than needs must in the military way, which, the present occasion past, might arm their old affections to do us more mischief, and put new and dangerous thoughts into them after they are returned home again, as of necessity they must, without further employment or provision, than what they had of their own before.” Meanwhile he intended to move the greater part of his present army into Ulster “as near Scotland as may be,” both to reduce that province to obedience “and perchance cause some little diversion on the other side, by reason of our being so close upon them.”^[137] In November, in response to a renewed appeal from his master, Wentworth agreed to send a body of five hundred picked men to the defence of Carlisle; the places of these troops being immediately supplied by new levies.^[138]

At the beginning of the following year the Lord Deputy, finding that the disturbances in Ulster still continued, and that a design had been formed to surprise the town of Carrickfergus, had recourse to an act of tyranny more outrageous than any upon which he had yet ventured. An oath, called by the Presbyterians “the Black Oath,” was framed by the Irish Council and imposed upon all the inhabitants of Ulster above the age of sixteen years, “upon the holy evangelists, and that upon pain of his Majesty’s high displeasure, and the uttermost and most severe punishments which may be inflicted according to the laws of this realm on contemners of sovereign authority.” The oath ran as follows: “I do faithfully swear, profess and promise that I will honour and obey my sovereign lord King Charles, and will bear faith and true allegiance unto him, and defend and maintain his royal power and authority, and that I will not bear arms or do any rebellious or hostile act against him, or protest against any of his royal commands, but submit myself in all due obedience thereunto; and that I will not enter into any covenant, oath, or band of mutual defence and assistance against any persons whatsoever by force, without his Majesty’s sovereign and regal authority. And I do renounce and abjure all covenants, oaths and bands whatsoever, contrary to what I have herein sworn, professed, and promised. So help me God in Christ Jesus.”^[139]

“The generality,” says a Presbyterian historian, “did take it, who were not bound with a conscience; others hid themselves or fled, leaving their homes and goods; and divers were imprisoned and kept in divers gaols for a considerable time. This proved the hottest piece of persecution this poor infant church had met with, and the strongest wind to separate between the wheat and the chaff. However, God strengthened many to hazard all before they would swallow it. In the county of Down not only divers left their habitations and most of their goods, and followed to Scotland, but others were apprehended and imprisoned, and they were kept long in the prison, till thereafter Wentworth was executed in England. In the county of Antrim, likewise, many were necessitated to flee, wherein they sustained great loss in the goods they left behind them; and yet were provided for, and lived sparingly in Scotland under the Gospel; and those men who were fit for war were made use of in the levies of Scotland about that time. The like suffering befell those of the Scottish nation who were godly in the counties of Tyrone and Londonderry; fewer of them going at first to Scotland they were subject to the more suffering. Upon refusing the oath they had their names returned to Dublin, from whence pursuivants were sent to apprehend those who were refractory. Divers were apprehended and taken prisoners to Dublin; others, though sent for, yet by special and very remarkable providences escaped the pursuivants who were most earnest to apprehend them. Thus that spirit raged amongst them before the rebellion, persecuting and imprisoning all who would not conform and take the Black Oath; amongst whom were divers women eminent in suffering with patience and constancy, which become the godly.”^[140]

It was by the common people that these oppressive proceedings, for which a petition signed by a handful of Episcopalian residents in Ulster was considered a sufficient pretext, were chiefly felt; but Wentworth was equally ready to strike at more exalted offenders. Among the refugees whom the tyranny of the Puritan party had driven from Scotland was a clergyman of considerable literary talents named John Corbet. In the summer of 1639 this gentleman fled to Dublin, where he published a pamphlet in which he inveighed against the proceedings of his countrymen with an acrimony which even the persecution which he had suffered cannot wholly excuse.^[141] This production recommended him to the favour of the Lord Deputy, who presented him to a valuable living in the diocese of Killala. The see of Killala was at this time filled by Archibald Adair, a Scotchman, who, in spite of his episcopal office, appears to have entertained a secret bias in favour of the Presbyterian discipline. Adair was imprudent enough to rebuke Corbet with some asperity for his hostility to the Covenant; the latter immediately complained to Wentworth; and the bishop was dragged before the High Commission Court and deprived of his bishopric. He was succeeded by John Maxwell, formerly Bishop of Ross, one of the prelates who had been driven from their sees during the recent ecclesiastical revolution in Scotland.^[142]

On March 18, 1640, Wentworth, now Earl of Strafford and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, returned from England to Dublin, where a parliament met two days later. The financial embarrassments produced by the Scotch war had at length compelled Charles to summon a parliament in England; and Strafford, who had himself urged his master to have recourse to this most unpalatable expedient, thought it advisable that the Irish legislature should meet some weeks earlier. He believed that he would be able to extort from that body a sum which would not only prove extremely serviceable to his Majesty, but might have the effect of stimulating the liberality of his English subjects. Nor was his confidence altogether misplaced. Although the whole country was seething with discontent the Parliament professed the most extravagant loyalty. The Catholics, intensely as they resented the plantations, dreaded the fanaticism of the Puritans even more than the tyranny of the Viceroy. The settlers had their own grievances, but, surrounded as they were by a hostile population, did not dare to come to an open rupture with the Government. Many of the smaller constituencies were represented by civil and military officials who voted at the dictation of the Lord Lieutenant. A grant of four subsidies was proposed, and carried with enthusiastic unanimity. A few days later a letter from the King was received, intimating that, if the rebellion in Scotland continued, even this enormous supply might not be sufficient. Two additional subsidies were proposed, and voted with equal alacrity. Not satisfied with these practical proofs of their loyalty, the Commons prefixed to their grant an elaborate panegyric on the Lord Lieutenant, and a declaration of their unswerving devotion to the royal person.^[143] Indeed the only incident which occurred to disturb their harmony had its origin in the intemperate zeal of the Upper House. The Lords were eager to concur in the loyal declarations of the Commons; and, at the suggestion of the Earl of Ormond, the zealous friend of the Lord Lieutenant, a resolution was carried congratulating the Commons on their liberality, and expressing a wish that the intended declaration might be made the joint act of both Houses. This well-meant proposal aroused unexpected indignation. The Commons claimed the exclusive right of taxation; they resented the action of the peers as an unconstitutional encroachment on their privileges, and peremptorily refused to unite with them in the proposed declaration. The Lords were compelled to rescind the obnoxious resolution and to content themselves with a separate declaration, which was duly entered in their own journals.^[144] On the 1st of April the Houses, having served the purpose for which they had been convened, were adjourned until the following June. Two days later the Lord Lieutenant sailed for England, having entrusted the civil government to Wandesford, and the command of the forces to the Earl of Ormond.

Strafford had resolved to devote the sums which were now at the disposal of the Government to the increase of the Irish army. During his absence the task devolved upon Ormond, who performed it with amazing rapidity. By the middle of the summer a body of eight thousand foot and one thousand horse was collected at Carrickfergus—the point whence they might be most easily employed for the invasion of Scotland. It is significant of the change which had taken place in Strafford’s views during the past year that, whereas the old army had been exclusively composed of Protestants, the new levies were mainly or entirely Roman Catholic.^[145] A few months earlier the Lord Lieutenant had been vehemently opposed to the enlistment of the native Irish. In July, 1638, Charles, who was then meditating the invasion of Scotland, had received an offer of assistance from an unexpected quarter. In the preceding century a number of clans from the Hebrides and the Western Highlands had established themselves upon the coast of Ulster, and had subsequently played an important part in the civil wars of the province, occasionally assisting the Government, but generally co-operating with the natives, whose language and customs did not materially differ from their own. Of these clans the Macdonnells were by far the most powerful.^[146] During the reign of Elizabeth, Sorley Boy Macdonnell, chief of the clan, had been engaged in frequent hostilities with successive governors. On the accession of James his son Randal had been confirmed in the possession of his estates, to which he had succeeded two years previously. This gentleman married a daughter of the Earl of Tyrone, and, after the flight of his father-in-law, appears to have become an object of suspicion to Chichester, then Lord Deputy. He speedily, however, made his peace with the Government, was raised to the peerage in 1618 as Viscount Dunluce, and, a few years later, created Earl of Antrim. His son, Randal, the second earl, married in 1635 the widow of the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham, by whose means he obtained a considerable influence at the court of England, where his fervid Catholicism secured for him the favour of Queen Henrietta Maria. When disturbances broke out in Scotland and it became known that the Covenanters had entrusted the principal command to the Earl of Argyle, the hereditary enemy of the Macdonnells, Antrim undertook to raise an army of Irish and Highland Catholics to assist the King in the reduction of the Scotch rebels. The offer was tempting, for the earl commanded an extensive following in both countries, and Charles was eager to avail himself of it; but Wentworth, who hated all Celts, and particularly detested Antrim, expressed his disapproval in the strongest terms. To Antrim himself, whom, in deference to the King’s wishes, it was necessary to make a show of consulting, the Lord Deputy hinted that he had perhaps underrated the difficulty of the enterprise; that, while it would be easy to raise troops, it would be less easy to pay and feed them; that the cost of arms and transports would be enormous; that the hazards of the attempt would be great and the consequences, in the event of failure, serious. To his colleagues in the English council he explained his real objections with greater frankness. The earl was the grandson of Tyrone, and therefore an object of distrust and aversion to the Englishry. Of the officers whom he proposed to employ, some had passed their lives in the Spanish service and were believed to retain Spanish sympathies. His troops would necessarily be recruited from amongst the native Irish, “children of habituated rebels,” from whom, if they were once armed, some sudden outrage might be apprehended. It would be a grave scandal if the King were to make use of a Roman Catholic army and a Roman Catholic general. It would afford the Scotch, who were very numerous in Ulster, a plausible pretext for arming to defend themselves, and thus the whole province might be thrown into a blaze. These arguments were pronounced by Windebank to be “very solid and unanswerable”; and, after some months spent in fruitless negotiations, the scheme was abandoned.^[147] In the spring of 1640, however, the hour for such scruples had gone by. It was necessary, if the Crown was to retain any vestige of authority, to raise an army in Ireland. It was impossible in their present temper to have any confidence in the loyalty of the Protestant settlers; and Strafford, who never hesitated to adapt his policy to circumstances, appealed to the native population. Perhaps no act of his administration contributed in so large a measure to bring upon him the vengeance of the English Parliament.

The Houses met again on the 1st of June. Although only two months had elapsed since the last session, the political situation had completely changed. The Covenanters were victorious in their own country, and were preparing to invade England. A Parliament had been held at Westminster in April, and, having refused to grant supplies, had been suddenly and ungraciously dismissed. This arbitrary act inflamed the popular discontent. The disaffected in Ireland—and there were few of any class or creed in Ireland who had not good grounds for disaffection—were encouraged by the disturbances in the sister kingdoms, and no longer cowed by the presence of the terrible viceroy. The officers, on whom Strafford had been wont to rely for the management of the House of Commons, were absent, detained by their military duties; and the Catholic and Puritan parties, whose mutual jealousies it had been a main object of his policy to foster, had agreed to suspend their former quarrels, and formed a close alliance for the purpose of embarrassing the Government. On many points the wishes of the two parties were irreconcilable; but there were two feelings which were shared in equal measure by both sections of the opposition—indignation at the tyranny of the Lord Lieutenant, and hatred of the Established Church. A remonstrance denouncing the corruption of the ecclesiastical courts and the exorbitant fees demanded by the Anglican clergy was proposed and carried by a large majority. The Commons next complained that the supplies voted in the preceding session were excessive; and, without actually rescinding their recent grant, suggested an alteration in the manner of collecting the subsidies which would greatly reduce their value. Alarmed at their violence, Wandesford prorogued the Parliament until October, when he perhaps hoped that the Lord Lieutenant might be able to resume his duties.^[148]

In October, however, Strafford was still in England; and the ill-humour of the Houses had increased rather than diminished during the recess. The third session of the Irish Parliament was even more turbulent than the second. A number of unpopular laws had been enacted in the last Parliament: these laws were now declared to be grievances, and an address to the Lord Deputy was carried requiring him to suspend their execution. In June the Commons had resolved that the remaining subsidies should be collected “in a moderate parliamentary way;” they now explained their wishes more precisely, and insisted that no man should be taxed to more than the tenth part of his income. On both these points Wandesford was obliged to comply with their demands.^[149]

While the Irish Parliament were thus manifesting their implacable hostility to his government, the Lord Lieutenant, who appears to have been wholly ignorant of the change which had taken place in their temper, submitted to Sir George Radcliffe one of the most remarkable proposals which have ever proceeded from a British minister. The Ulster Scots were now the great objects of his animosity, and the severities hitherto employed had served rather to irritate than to intimidate them. As a last hope of preserving the tranquillity of the country Strafford now proposed that, with the assent of the Irish Parliament and the assistance of the native Catholics, the entire colony should be transported back to Scotland—a most significant comment on the advantages which the English monarchy is popularly supposed to have derived from the Plantation of Ulster. “It will be objected,” he wrote, “that the Scots are many in number, every ordinary fellow still carrying his sword and pistol; and therefore unsafe to be too far provoked. I answer—’tis more unsafe to deal with an enemy by halves; and that, I fear, will fall out to be our case, if resolutely this design be not put in execution; for who sees not, if the now standing army be not able, without any manner of danger or difficulty, to give them the law, and send them forthwith packing—I say, who sees not that, upon Argyle’s landing and arming of them, we shall be exposed to a most assured scorn and certain ruin?” It is evident that Strafford, when he wrote these words, relied for the success of his project upon the servility of Protestant royalists and the traditional feud between the Catholic and Puritan parties; but Radcliffe, who had formed a juster estimate of the actual condition of the country, did not dare to communicate the proposal to the Irish Parliament.^[150]

That body was by no means satisfied with its recent triumphs. In the first week of November the Commons, acting, it is said, at the instigation of some members of the English Parliament, which had met a few days earlier, notably of Sir John Clotworthy, a Presbyterian landowner, who had been driven from Ulster by the tyranny of Strafford, and now represented the borough of Malden, drew up a remonstrance enumerating the principal grievances from which the kingdom had suffered under the administration of the Lord Lieutenant. The remonstrance was composed of sixteen articles, of which the first related to the general decay of trade, said to be due to new and illegal methods of taxation; the second and third to the arbitrary interference of the Lord Lieutenant and Council with private lawsuits; the fourth and fifth to the refusal of the Graces and the inquiries into defective titles, particularly in the province of Connaught; the sixth and seventh to monopolies, especially the monopoly of tobacco; the eighth to “the extreme and cruel usage of the inhabitants of the city and county of Londonderry”; the ninth to the tyranny of the High Commission Court; the tenth to the exactions of the Anglican clergy; the eleventh to the misappropriation of the revenue; the twelfth to a proclamation issued in 1635 prohibiting gentlemen to leave the kingdom without license; the thirteenth to the disfranchisement of certain ancient boroughs, by which the Parliament was said to have been deprived of the services of many good and useful members; the fourteenth to the intimidation practised by ministers in the House of Commons; the fifteenth to the exorbitant and illegal fees demanded by subordinate officials in the courts of justice; and the last to the impoverishment of merchants and other subjects owing to the intolerable rapacity of the tax-farmers. On the 11th the House appointed a committee of thirteen members, four from Leinster, and three from each of the other provinces, who were instructed to proceed to London and present the remonstrance to the King. On the 12th the Parliament was once more prorogued.^[151]

The committee, meanwhile, had sailed for England, without waiting for the license of the Deputy. On their arrival in London they found the Earl of Strafford a prisoner, accused of high treason, and the leaders of the popular party busily employed in collecting evidence against him. Ireland had been the principal scene of the fallen minister’s activity, and it was to his Irish administration that his accusers chiefly looked to furnish matter which might justify his impeachment. On the 6th of November, Pym had moved for a committee to enquire into the affairs of that kingdom; and the motion, which was seconded by Sir John Clotworthy, had been carried by a large majority. To this committee the Irish agents now addressed themselves. The remonstrance was laid before the House of Commons on the 20th, was made the subject of an exhaustive discussion, and was much used in the subsequent prosecution of the Lord Lieutenant.^[152]

In Ireland, meanwhile, all was chaos. Wandesford died suddenly at the beginning of December, broken-hearted at the calamities of his patron and the alarming condition of the country. After an interregnum of some weeks Charles was reluctantly compelled to entrust the government to two Lords Justices, who were understood to enjoy the confidence of the English Parliament; Sir William Parsons, Master of the Court of Wards, and Sir John Borlase, Master of the Ordnance.^[153] The first was an astute and rapacious official, who had amassed a vast fortune at the expense of the native proprietors; the second a rough soldier, inexperienced except in the business of his profession. The Houses met again in February and speedily gave fresh proofs of their unabated hostility to the Government. During the last session a remonstrance, identical with that voted in the House of Commons, had been proposed in the Lords, but had been defeated owing to the opposition of the Earl of Ormond. A few days after the prorogation, however, the principal Roman Catholic peers had at an informal meeting deputed three of their number to proceed to London and lay their grievances before the Parliament. These noblemen, with one other, were now authorized to act in the name of the entire body; to repeat the complaints of the Commons; and to adduce others relating to matters which particularly affected their own order.^[154]

While the Lords were thus manifesting their implacable animosity against the Earl of Strafford, the Commons were adopting even more violent measures. The remonstrance had placed a formidable weapon in the hands of the managers of the impeachment; but its effect was much diminished by the fulsome panegyric upon the Lord Lieutenant which had been prefixed to the act of supply voted in the preceding year. The Commons now declared that this panegyric had been fraudulently inserted in the Act by the earl or his creatures; protested that the matter of it was entirely false; and petitioned the King that it might be expunged from the records.^[155] A few days later a similar resolution was proposed in the Upper House, and carried in spite of the opposition of Ormond and other royalist peers.^[156] The two Houses next prepared a list of constitutional questions, which were submitted to the judges for consideration. To these questions, which related to the judicial powers claimed and exercised by the Lord Lieutenant, the validity of acts of State, the jurisdiction of the Castle Chamber and the High Commission Court, the exercise of martial law in time of peace, the punishment of jurors who refused to find for the Crown, the right of the judges to accept bribes, and some other matters of less importance, the judges declared themselves unable to return immediate answers. The questions were thereupon forwarded to the Irish committee in London, who were instructed to communicate them to the English Parliament.^[157] Finally, on the 27th of February, Audley Mervyn, the principal spokesman of the Puritan party, carried to the bar of the House of Lords articles of impeachment against Sir Richard Bolton, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John, Bishop of Derry, Sir Gerald Lowther, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Sir George Radcliffe, Kt., all of whom were jointly and severally charged with having traitorously conspired with Thomas, Earl of Strafford, to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government and to subvert the liberties of Parliament and the fundamental laws of the realm.^[158]

These impeachments were among the last acts of the coalition. An alliance between parties who agreed in nothing save a common hatred was inevitably dissolved by the destruction of the common enemy. Even before the Act of Attainder had received the royal assent, the Catholic section of the opposition had had some reason to be alarmed at the conduct of their Puritan allies. In the last week of April a petition, described as proceeding from “some Protestant inhabitants of the counties of Antrim, Down, Derry, Tyrone, and Armagh,” was presented to the House of Commons by Sir John Clotworthy. The petitioners complained that “partly by the cruel severity and arbitrary proceedings of the civil magistrate, but principally through the unblest way of the prelacy with their faction their souls were starved, their estates undone, their families impoverished, and many among them cut off and destroyed.”

Their chief grievance, however, appeared to consist in the laxity with which the laws against recusants were administered. Titular bishops were winked at. Mass priests were frequent and pretended a title to every parish in the kingdom. Masses were “publicly celebrated without controulment, to the great grief of God’s people, and increase of idolatry and superstition.” Friaries and nunneries were tolerated; and in many places Papists were permitted to keep schools, “unto some whereof such multitudes of children and young men do resort that they may be esteemed rather universities, teaching therein not only the tongues, but likewise the liberal arts and sciences.”^[159]

The fanatical tone of this petition, the favour with which it was received by the Parliament, and the persecution of the English Catholics completely alienated the Irish from the Puritan party. At the same time the fall of Strafford had removed the main obstacle to a reconciliation between the King and the recusants. Urged on by the Queen, and alarmed at the critical condition of his other kingdoms, Charles at length resolved to conciliate his Irish subjects. In May the Lords Justices received instructions to prepare a Bill for the limitation of the royal title, and another for securing the possessions of the Connaught gentry.^[160] These and some other less serious concessions effected a rapid change in the sentiments of the Catholic leaders, and the men who in the spring of 1641 had united with the Puritans to resist the tyranny of the Crown took arms in the autumn of the same year to defend the Crown against the encroachments of the Puritans.

159.A Sample of Jet Black Prelatic Calumny, pp. 131, etc.