CHAP.

VI.

1686.

Powis was therefore suggested as the man best qualified for the viceroyalty. He was of illustrious birth: he was a sincere Roman Catholic: and yet he was generally allowed by candid Protestants to be an honest man and a good Englishman. All opposition, however, yielded to Tyrconnel's energy and cunning. He fawned, bullied, and bribed indefatigably. Petre's help was secured by flattery. Sunderland was plied at once with promises and menaces. An immense price was offered for his support, no less than an annuity of five thousand pounds a year from Ireland, redeemable by payment of fifty thousand pounds down. If this proposal were rejected, Tyrconnel threatened to let the King know that the Lord President had, at the Friday dinners, described His Majesty as a fool who must be governed either by a woman or by a priest. Sunderland, pale and trembling, offered to procure for Tyrconnel supreme military command, enormous appointments, anything but the viceroyalty: but all compromise was rejected; and it was necessary to yield. Mary of Modena herself was not free from suspicion of corruption. There was in London a renowned chain of pearls which was valued at ten thousand pounds. It had belonged to Prince Rupert; and by him it had been left to Margaret Hughes, a courtesan who, towards the close of his life, had exercised a boundless empire over him. Tyrconnel loudly boasted that with this chain he had purchased the support of the Queen. There were those, however, who suspected that this story was one of Dick Talbot's truths, and that it had no more foundation than the calumnies which, twenty-six years before, he had invented to blacken the fame of Anne Hyde. To the Roman Catholic courtiers generally he spoke of the uncertain tenure by which they held offices, honours, and emoluments. The King might die tomorrow, and might leave them at the mercy of a hostile government and a hostile rabble. But, if the old faith could be made dominant

VI.

1687.

in Ireland, if the Protestant interest in that country CHAP. could be destroyed, there would still be, in the worst event, an asylum at hand to which they might retreat, and where they might either negotiate or defend themselves with advantage. A Popish priest was hired with the promise of the mitre of Waterford to preach at Saint James's against the Act of Settlement; and his sermon, though heard with deep disgust by the English part of the auditory, was not without its effect. The struggle which patriotism had for a time maintained against bigotry in the royal mind was at an end. "There is work to be done in Ireland," said James, "which no Englishman will do."*

All obstacles were at length removed; and in February 1687, Tyrconnel began to rule his native country with the power and appointments of Lord Lieutenant, but with the humbler title of Lord Deputy.

the English

His arrival spread dismay through the whole English Dismay of population. Clarendon was accompanied, or speedily colonists in followed, across St. George's Channel, by a large pro- Ireland. portion of the most respectable inhabitants of Dublin, gentlemen, tradesmen, and artificers. It was said that fifteen hundred families emigrated in a few days. The panic was not unreasonable. The work of putting the colonists down under the feet of the natives went rapidly on. In a short time almost every Privy Councillor, Judge, Sheriff, Mayor, Alderman, and Justice of the Peace was a Celt and a Roman Catholic. It seemed that things would soon be ripe for a general election, and that a House of Commons bent on abrogating the Act of Settlement would easily be assembled.† Those who had lately been the lords of the island now cried out, in the bitterness of their souls, that they had become

The best account of these transactions is in the Sheridan MS. † Sheridan MS.; Oldmixon's Memoirs of Ireland; King's State

of the Protestants of Ireland, par-
ticularly chapter iii.; Apology for
the Protestants of Ireland, 1689.

CHAP.
VI.

a prey and a laughingstock to their own serfs and menials; that houses were burnt and cattle stolen with 1687. impunity; that the new soldiers roamed the country, pillaging, insulting, ravishing, maiming, tossing one Protestant in a blanket, tying up another by the hair and scourging him; that to appeal to the law was vain; that Irish Judges, Sheriffs, juries, and witnesses were all in a league to save Irish criminals; and that, even without an Act of Parliament, the whole soil would soon change hands; for that, in every action of ejectment tried under the administration of Tyrconnel, judgment had been given for the native against the Englishman.*

Effect of

While Clarendon was at Dublin the Privy Seal had been in the hands of Commissioners. His friends hoped that it would, on his return to London, be again delivered to him. But the King and the Jesuitical cabal had determined that the disgrace of the Hydes should be complete. Lord Arundell of Wardour, a Roman Catholic, received the Privy Seal. Bellasyse, a Roman Catholic, was made First Lord of the Treasury; and Dover, another Roman Catholic, had a seat at the board. The appointment of a ruined gambler to such a trust would alone have sufficed to disgust the public. The dissolute Etherege, who then resided at Ratisbon as English envoy, could not refrain from expressing, with a sneer, his hope that his old boon companion, Dover, would keep the King's money better than his own. order that the finances might not be ruined by incapable and inexperienced Papists, the obsequious, diligent and silent Godolphin was named a Commissioner of the Treasury, but continued to be Chamberlain to the Queen.†

In

The dismission of the two brothers is a great epoch the fall of in the reign of James. From that time it was clear

the Hydes.

Secret Consults of the Romish March 14. 168; Evelyn's Diary,
Party in Ireland, 1690.
March 10. Etherege's letter to
† London Gazette, Jan. 6. and Dover is in the British Museum.

that what he really wanted was not liberty of conscience
for the members of his own church, but liberty to per-
secute the members of other churches. Pretending to
abhor tests, he had himself imposed a test.
He thought
it hard, he thought it monstrous, that able and loyal
men should be excluded from the public service solely
for being Roman Catholics. Yet he had himself turned
out of office a Treasurer, whom he admitted to be both
loyal and able, solely for being a Protestant. The cry
was that a general proscription was at hand, and that
every public functionary must make up his mind to lose
his soul or to lose his place.* Who indeed could hope
to stand where the Hydes had fallen? They were the
brothers in law of the King, the uncles and natural
guardians of his children, his friends from early youth,
his steady adherents in adversity and peril, his obse-
quious servants since he had been on the throne. Their
sole crime was their religion; and for this crime they
had been discarded. In great perturbation men began
to look round for help; and soon all eyes were fixed on
one whom a rare concurrence both of personal quali-
ties and of fortuitous circumstances pointed out as the
deliverer.

"Pare che gli animi sono inaspriti della voce che corre per il popolo, d'esser cacciato il detto mi

nistro per non essere Cattolico, perciò
tirarsi al esterminio de' Protestanti."
-Adda,
1687.

Dec. 31.
Jan. 10.

CHAP.

VI.

1687.

CHAP.
VII.

1687. William,

Prince of
Orange.
His appear-

ance.

CHAPTER VII.

THE place which William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau, occupies in the history of England and of mankind is so great that it may be desirable to portray with some minuteness the strong lineaments of his character.*

He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in
body and in mind he was older than other men of the
same age.
Indeed it might be said that he had never

been young.
His external appearance is almost as well
known to us as to his own captains and counsellors.
Sculptors, painters, and medallists exerted their utmost
skill in the work of transmitting his features to pos-
terity; and his features were such as no artist could
fail to seize, and such as, once seen, could never be for-
gotten. His name at once calls up before us a slender
and feeble frame, a lofty and ample forehead, a nose
curved like the beak of an eagle, an eye rivalling that of
an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and
somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish
mouth, a cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by sick-
ness and by care. That pensive, severe, and solemn
aspect could scarcely have belonged to a happy or a
goodhumoured man. But it indicates in a manner not
to be mistaken capacity equal to the most arduous en-

*The chief materials from which I have taken my description of the Prince of Orange will be found in Burnet's History, in Temple's and Gourville's Memoirs, in the Negotiations of the Counts of Estrades and Avaux, in Sir George Downing's Letters to Lord Chancellor

Clarendon, in Wagenaar's voluminous History, in Van Kamper's Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis, and, above all, in William's own confidential correspondence, of which the Duke of Portland permitted Sir James Mackintosh to take a copy.