1650-2]

Articles of Kilkenny. End of the War

535

ceased to exercise any practical influence on the course of events. And it scarcely needed the formal demand addressed to him by the clergy on August 10, that he should surrender his authority into hands more worthy of the confidence of the nation, to induce him to retire from a position which had long been hateful to him. Accordingly, having transferred his powers to the Earl of Clanricarde, he quitted Ireland on December 11. For a moment an offer of assistance from the vainglorious Duke Charles of Lorraine shed a ray of light through the gathering gloom; but the conditions attached to it, though acceptable to the clerical party as represented by the Bishop of Ferns and Sir Nicholas Plunkett, were indignantly rejected by Clanricarde as "a total transferring of the crown from His Majesty to a foreign Prince."

It was late in the following year before Ireton took the field. Having forced the passage of the Shannon in the face of Castlehaven, he formally summoned Limerick on June 3. Nearly five months, however, elapsed before the city, worn out by famine and pestilence, capitulated. As the garrison marched out it was noted by Ludlow that two of the soldiers fell down dead of the plague in the ranks. Ireton himself caught the infection, and died on November 26, leaving Ludlow to finish the work of conquest. Meanwhile, Athlone had surrendered to Coote on June 18. At the beginning of 1652 Galway and a few isolated garrisons alone held out. Galway capitulated to Coote in April, on terms which the Parliamentary Commissioners refused to ratify. But the country was by no means conquered. Everywhere considerable bands of soldiers, amounting together to several thousands, with whom the soldiers of the Commonwealth had difficulty in coping, carried on an exasperating guerrilla warfare. Cromwell's decree of no pardon had long ago been given up; but all the same it seemed as if the war would never come to an end. The cost of maintaining the army was becoming unbearable and the Adventurers were clamouring for a speedy settlement of their claims. Urged by these considerations, the Commissioners of Parliament held out offers of more favourable treatment as an inducement to submit. On May 12 terms were concluded with the Earl of Westmeath on behalf of his Irish forces in Leinster, permitting him and his men, with the exception of such as had been guilty of murder, to transport themselves abroad into any country at amity with the Commonwealth. These terms, known as the Articles of Kilkenny, furnished the basis for further surrenders. During the summer one leader after another submitted; and when Fleetwood arrived in September most of the Irish had laid down their arms. No fewer, it was calculated, than 34,000 Irish soldiers took the opportunity thus given them to quit the country. A large number still remained, insufficient indeed to offer any effectual opposition, but sufficient to frustrate any scheme for the extirpation of the nation.

The settlement of Ireland could now begin; and no man could have

536

Preparations for a final Settlement

[1652-3 been found better qualified to carry it into execution than Fleetwood, by reason of his profound belief in the efficacy of the plantation policy to secure the permanent settlement of Ireland and the safety of England. Two great Acts of State furnished the ground-plan of what is called the Cromwellian Settlement, viz., first, the Act of March 19, 1642, for raising £1,000,000 on the security of two and a half million acres of Irish land, together with certain subsequent Acts and Ordinances, commonly called the "Acts of Subscription," and, secondly, an Act passed on August 12, 1652, called an "Act for the settling of Ireland." By the Act of 1642 it had been assumed that two and a half million acres of land had been forfeited by the Rebellion; by the Act of 1652 measures were taken to realise the assumption contained in the former Act. To this end all Irishmen — old Irish, Anglo-Irish and Scoto-Irish who could not prove their innocence and good affection to the Commonwealth of England were taken to have been guilty either as actors or abettors in the Rebellion, and were to be punished either by loss of life and property or of property alone (wholly or partially) according to the degree of their guilt. To determine the cases of those who were to lose their lives a High Court of Justice was immediately established. But that property was the main thing aimed at it is evident from a clause of the Act exempting all labourers, ploughmen, and landless men generally from the consequences of the Rebellion provided that they had not been guilty of murder and submitted at once. A fund of land having been thus, as it were, provided for the liquidation of the debts incurred in the suppression of the Rebellion, and Commissioners having been appointed to survey the forfeited lands, the next step was to settle their distribution. To this end an Act called the "Act of Satisfaction" was passed on September 26, 1653. For the purposes of the Act Ireland was regarded as divided into two portions- the one comprising the province of Connaught, including county Clare, the other the three other provinces the former to meet all claims arising on the part of such Irish proprietors as should manage to save any part of their lands in any part of the kingdom; and the latter for the satisfaction of the Adventurers, soldiers, and other creditors. As Connaught was to be wholly Irish, so the five counties of Kildare, Dublin, Carlow, Wicklow, and Wexford were to be formed into a new English Pale, from which all Irish were to be excluded. Ten counties, viz., Waterford, Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's and King's counties, Meath, Westmeath, Armagh, Down, and Antrim (to which were added as a sort of reserve in case of deficiency Louth, part of Cork and Fermanagh, together with a belt of land round Connaught), were put aside to answer the claims of the Adventurers and the army, which since June 5, 1649, had been engaged in the actual conquest of Ireland. The remainder (excluding Dublin, Carlow, Kildare, or the greater portion of these counties, and a moiety of county Cork, together with all walled towns and ecclesiastical lands, which the State

1653-8]

Difficulties in carrying out the scheme

537

reserved for itself) was assigned to answer all other debts, including the arrears due to the Parliamentary armies in England and Ireland prior to June 5, 1649, commonly called the "English" and "'49 arrears respectively.

The ground-plan of the settlement having been thus laid, preparations were made to put it in execution. For this purpose the lands designed for the new settlers had first of all to be cleared of their old owners. The first step in this direction had already been taken by an Order issued on July 2, requiring all Irish proprietors to transplant themselves and their families to Connaught before May 1, 1654, and afterwards, on October 14 (such at least seems to have been the interpretation generally adopted), extended to all Irishmen without exception.

When May 1 came it was found that 1589 certificates, representing 43,308 individuals, had been lodged with the Commissioners at Loughrea, appointed to assign lands in Connaught; but of a general transplantation there was not the faintest sign. For a moment it seemed as if the transplantation policy would undergo modification. But in the end the views of Fleetwood and the military party prevailed. On November 30 a fresh Declaration was published requiring all transplantable persons to betake themselves to Connaught before March 1, 1655, under pain of death. This time, so far as the proprietors were concerned, the Order did not remain a dead letter. During the winter hundreds of families removed into Connaught. But nothing could induce the natives as a body to move. A few were hanged as an example; multitudes-men, women, and children were, under the pretext of vagrancy, shipped off to Barbados and elsewhere. But it was all to no purpose. Self-interest and humanity urged the abandonment of a policy that was turning Ireland into a wilderness and leaving it a prey to the wolf and the Tory. Meanwhile the necessity for a speedy settlement had become imperative. The debt to the army was alarming. There had been a slight disbandment and a partial settlement of "49 arrears" in 1653, for which purpose Leitrim had been withdrawn from the lands assigned to the Irish; but there were still more than 30,000 men in pay. To add to the difficulties of the situation, it was found that the land at the disposal of the State was insufficient to answer all obligations. To remedy this deficiency, the army consented to the rates at which the lands were to be calculated being raised; a new and more accurate survey, known as the Down Survey, under the direction of Dr William Petty was ordered; and further lands in Connaught were added to the general fund. Meanwhile the army was put in possession of the rents accruing from the lands assigned for its satisfaction. In September, 1655, the first great disbandment took place. In March, 1656, Petty had finished his survey; and by the close of the year the army had, except the bulk of the "'49 arrears,' been practically settled on the lands allotted to it. By the end of 1658 most of the Adventurers' claims had been satisfied.

538

The Settlement effected

[1655-9

There was still much to do in the way of settling all the obligations incurred by Government, but under the mild rule of Henry Cromwell, who had succeeded Fleetwood in September, 1655, though not actually appointed Deputy till November, 1657, the country gradually emerged from the chaos in which the war and the plantation had involved it. Infinite were the sufferings of the dispossessed Irish. Murder and outrage stalked through the land. The new planters, whithersoever they came, carried their lives in their hands. But the dream of a new England across the Channel, as it had long floated before the imagination of English statesmen, seemed at last to have been realised. Two-thirds of the soil of Ireland had passed into the hands of Englishmen. By the identification of its commercial interests with those of England, and the incorporation of Ireland with that country for parliamentary purposes, under the Instrument of Government, and by the care taken to secure a monopoly in the representation to the new settlers, the Commonwealth had as it were placed its seal on its victory. Henceforth the English interest in Ireland might be considered safe.

After the death of Cromwell the government of Ireland shared the fate that overtook the Commonwealth. In vain Ludlow, to the last true to his Republican principles, tried hard to avert the inevitable and to reconcile men who would not be reconciled. The country was tired both of the rule of the army and of a discredited Parliament; and when on December 16, 1659, Monck declared for a free Parliament the army in Ireland under Coote and Broghill acquiesced. The Restoration brought many changes with it, and among them a fresh land settlement; but, as an expression of the will of England, the Cromwellian Settlement was too firmly laid to be radically altered.

CHAPTER XIX

ANARCHY AND THE RESTORATION

(1659-60)

THE fall of Richard Cromwell was a gradual process. It began on April 22, 1659, when he dissolved Parliament, and ended with his formal abdication on May 25. But his government came to an end on May 7, when the Long Parliament reassembled at Westminster. Fleetwood and the great officers of the army who forced Richard to dissolve his Parliament had not intended to overthrow the Protectorate. They meant to limit his power and that of the civil element in his Council, and to govern in his name. Accordingly they at first endeavoured, as a Republican said, "to piece and mend up that cracked Government," though without success. For the inferior officers who were Republicans outvoted their superiors in the Council of the Army, and rejected the plan of the "Grandees." John Lambert, who was readmitted into the army by the Council on April 29, and restored to his old rank of Major-General, made himself the advocate of the Long Parliament which he had helped to expel, and he was seconded by many other officers whom Cromwell had likewise cashiered for opposing the Protectorate. Nor did it a little contribute to the success of the movement that the Independent ministers, especially the extremer sectaries, exerted all their influence with the army in favour of the return to a republic. A hasty negotiation between the leaders of the Long Parliament and the heads of the army followed, in which only the vaguest understanding was arrived at between the two parties. The members of the Long Parliament were then invited to resume their authority; and forty-two of them reassembled at Westminster on May 7. In all about 130 members were qualified to sit, of whom about 120 put in their appearance at different times; but the highest number present in the House during the next five months was 76. To this simulacrum of a legislature the army was obliged to commit supreme power, because it needed some shred of constitutional authority to cover its domination and to provide for its maintenance. But the members of the Long Parliament themselves returned to their seats without a doubt that they possessed an indefeasible right to rule a people, some fraction of which