1653 Diminution IRISH NATIONAL FEELING 129 Heavily had the Irish people suffered. A calculation, rough indeed, but proceeding from a competent statistician, reckons the diminution of the native population as of the Irish 616,000 out of 1,466,000. Those who perished population. were the victims of plague and famine, as well as of the sword. Since Cromwell's departure, famine had been deliberately employed as a means of overpowering the scattered remnants who took refuge in bogs and mountains. Growth of The hand of the Englishman was everywhere felt, with the result that the spirit of Irish nationality had never risen higher than on the day when its outward manifestation the national seemed hopelessly beaten to the ground, because it spirit. found a home in the breasts of all who, from whatever race they might be descended, were treated as outcasts on account of their devotion to the Roman Catholic religion. Two centuries before the English sovereigns had been confronted by a congeries of Irish tribes. The English Commonwealth was confronted by an Irish nation. The people under its clergy had shed the organs-the Supreme Council, the Lord Lieutenant, the Lord Deputy-which fostered the notion that Ireland was but part of a larger community inhabiting the whole of the British Isles. Difficulties of the con querors. It was this steady growth of Irish national feeling which constituted the real difficulty of the conquerors. Merely to deal with the murderers of 1641, or even with the leaders of the insurrection which followed, would have been comparatively an easy task. The murders and the insurrection were but an episode in the deplorable history of that long strife of which Englishmen took little heed. It was only in the nature of things that England should set herself against the establishment of a hostile nation in Ireland; only in the nature of things that her attempt to hinder it by main force should be the fruitful source of unnumbered 'Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland (ed. 1891), p. 18. 2 Petty sets down 87,000 deaths as due to the sword, and 412,000 to plague, leaving the remainder to starvation, but his calculation is very loose, ib. p. 20. VOL. II. K miseries. It was no longer possible to revert to the intelligent policy of Henry VIII., and to govern Ireland by rulers developed within herself. Mary, Elizabeth, James, and Strafford had struck another note, each time with increasing emphasis. The Commonwealth, in its own conceit so innovating, could find no other way than to tread in the steps of its immediate predecessors. CHAPTER XX THE SUBMISSION OF SCOTLAND AND THE COLONIES IN Scotland, even more than in Ireland, English conquest had resulted from measures taken in self-defence. In 1648, indeed, 1648-1651. England and Scotland. Cromwell, after the destruction of Hamilton's army, had generously offered his alliance to the Argyle Government on the understanding that neither country should interfere with the political or ecclesiastical institutions of the other. That understanding had broken down, partly in consequence of the King's execution, partly on account of the abhorrence with which the Scottish clergy viewed the predominance of a sectarian army in England. When the younger Charles had been proclaimed in Edinburgh as the Sovereign of both kingdoms, an armed conflict between the two peoples had become inevitable, and after a second Scottish invading army had been crushed at Worcester, it was for the English Government to pronounce upon the future relations of the two countries. For the present Scotland was incapable of prolonging her resistance. During the last three years at least 40,000 of her hardiest sons had been either slain or swept into captivity. It was, therefore, a foregone conclusion that Scotland must be disarmed, and the English Government can hardly be Scotland to be disarmed. severely blamed if it imagined that it could temper the bitterness of the cup by offering incorporation with England to her neighbours beyond the Tweed and a full share in the privileges of Englishmen—the very offer, in short, which had recently been made to the citizens of the United Provinces. The work would appear the easier as no racial distinction separated the Lowland Scot from the Northumbrian, whilst, with the tolerant ideas prevailing at Westminster, it might appear not so very difficult to surmount even the obstacles caused by the rooted Presbyterianism of the North. Of the strength of the national spirit-all the more powerful because Lowland Scotland was a comparatively small and scantily populated territory-there was probably but little idea in the English Parliament. Yet this was precisely what it was most important for Englishmen to take into account. If Scotland could not be conciliated, she must be coerced, and, strong as England was, the cost of coercing Scotland might be great enough to weaken the government even of England herself. 1652. Jan. An assess ment levied. When once, however, the Parliamentary statesmen had resolved on their line of action, there was no room for hesitation. In January 1652 the situation was regularised, so far as the military authorities were concerned, by the assessment on each county of an enforced contribution in lieu of the free-quarters demanded for the English soldiers as long as a state of war was understood to prevail.1 The political settlement of the country required more forethought. On January 15 a body of eight Commissioners, amongst whom were Vane and St. John, as well as Monk, Deane, and Lambert, took Dalkeith. up their residence at Dalkeith, having been instructed to obtain from the Scots themselves what might pass as a voluntary assent to a union with England.2 Jan. 15. English Commis sioners at Of voluntary assent in any real sense there was but little to be found. There were, indeed, a few persons calling themselves Presbyterians prepared to make a merit of necessity and to give in their submission to the English Commonwealth, but the two great parties in Presbyte rian opposition. 1 A Perf. Diurnal, E, 793, 21. 2 C.J. vii. 30; Perf. Diurnal, E, 793, 18. [See The Cromwellian Union: Papers relating to the Negotiations for an Incorporating Union between England and Scotland, 1651-1652, by Mr. C. S. Terry, published by the Scottish History Society in 1902.] 1652 SCOTTISH FEELING HOSTILE 133 the Kirk, however hostile to one another, were united in their rejection of this course. The Resolutioners had rallied too ostentatiously round the banner of the King to abandon it now, whilst the Remonstrants, or Protesters as they were more frequently called, were the backbone of resistance to an English government for the very reasons which had made them hostile to Charles whilst he was still in Scotland. It was their part to vindicate the independence of the Kirk in the face of sectarian foreigners, as they had already vindicated it in the face of a worldly and hypocritical king. They would never, they boldly declared, acknowledge a system of government which would bring in its train the establishment of toleration and the subRoyalist ordination of the Church to the State in the things support. of Christ.1 Strange to say, it was mainly to the Royalist gentry that the Commissioners could at present look for support. Dislike of the severe discipline of the Kirk formed a common bond between them. Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum, himself a Roman Catholic,2 not only refused Irvine of to appear before the Presbytery of Aberdeen, but appealed to Monk on the ground that he was unable to acknowledge the judicature of the Church courts as not being established by the Commonwealth of England.' 3 Case of Drum. In the long run it would little profit the English Commonwealth to rely on Scottish Royalism, and the Commissioners Jan. 21. Provisions for the administration of justice were therefore well advised in attempting to secure the goodwill of the bulk of the population by the encouragement of material prosperity. On January 21 announced. they issued a proclamation at the Market Cross of Edinburgh, declaring their resolution to provide for the administration of justice, as well as to withstand the exercise of any authority not derived from the Commonwealth of England. To give emphasis to this last announcement the 1 Perf. Diurnal, E, 793, 21; Johnston of Warriston and others to Lambert, Jan. 20, ib. E, 793, 24. 2 This name occurs a few years later in a list of Roman Catholics amongst the Roman Transcripts, R.O. 3 Perf. Diurnal, E, 793, 28. 4 Nicoll's Diary, 80. |