Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
The office of conservators of the peace was newly erected in Scotland, in order to maintain the confederacy between the two kingdoms; and these, instigated by the clergy, were resolved, since they could not obtain the king’s consent, to summon, in his name, but by their own authority, a convention of states; and to bereave their sovereign of this article, the only one which remained, of his prerogative. Under colour of providing for national peace, endangered by the neighbourhood of English
armies, was a convention called;u
an assembly, which, though it meets with less solemnity, has the same authority as a parliament, in raising money and levying forces. Hamilton and his brother the earl of Laneric, who had been sent into Scotland in order to oppose these measures, wanted either authority or sincerity; and passively yielded to the torrent. The general assembly of the church met at the same time with the convention; and exercising an authority almost absolute over the whole civil power, made every political consideration yield to their theological zeal and prejudices.
The English parliament was, at that time, fallen into great distress, by the progress of the royal arms; and they gladly sent to Edinburgh commissioners, with ample power, to treat of a nearer union and confederacy with the Scottish nation. The persons employed were the earl of Rutland, Sir William Armyne, Sir Henry Vane the younger, Thomas Hatcher, and Henry Darley, attended by Marshal and Nye, two clergymen of PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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signal authority.
w
In this negociation, the man chiefly trusted was Vane, who, in eloquence, address, capacity, as well as in art and dissimulation, was not surpassed by any one, even during that age, so famous for active talents.
By his persuasion was framed at Edinburgh, that SOLEMN
Solemn league and
LEAGUE AND COVENANT; which effaced all former
covenant.
protestations and vows taken in both kingdoms; and long
maintained its credit and authority. In this covenant, the subscribers, besides engaging mutually to defend each other against all opponents, bound themselves to endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation of popery and prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness; to maintain the rights and privileges of parliaments, together with the king’s authority; and to discover and bring to justice all incendiaries and
The subscribers of the covenant vowed also to preserve the reformed religion established in the church of Scotland; but by the artifice of Vane no declaration more explicit was made with regard to England and Ireland, than that these kingdoms should be reformed, according to the word of God and the example of the purest churches. The Scottish zealots, when prelacy was abjured, deemed this expression quite free from ambiguity, and regarded their own model as the only one, which corresponded, in any degree, to such a description: But that able politician had other views; and while he employed his great talents in over-reaching the presbyterians, and secretly laughed at their simplicity, he had blindly devoted himself to the maintenance of systems, still more absurd and more dangerous.
In the English parliament there remained some members, who, though they had been induced, either by private ambition or by zeal for civil liberty, to concur with the majority, still retained an attachment to the hierarchy and to the ancient modes of worship. But in the present danger, which threatened their cause, all scruples were laid aside; and the covenant, by whose means alone they could expect to obtain so considerable a reinforcement as the accession of the Scottish nation, was received without opposition.
The parliament therefore, having first subscribed it themselves, Sept. 17.
ordered it to be received by all who lived under their authority.
Great were the rejoicings among the Scots, that they should be the happy instruments of extending their mode of religion, and dissipating that profound darkness, in which the neighbouring nations were involved. The general assembly applauded this glorious imitation of the piety displayed by their ancestors, who, they said, in three different applications, during the reign of Elizabeth, had endeavoured to engage the English, by persuasion, to lay aside the use of the surplice, tippet, and corner-cap.
y
The convention too, in the height of their zeal, ordered every one to swear to this covenant, under the penalty of confiscation; beside what farther punishment it should please the ensuing parliament to inflict on the refusers, as enemies to God, to the king, and to the kingdom. And being determined, that the sword should carry conviction to all refractory minds, they prepared themselves, with great vigilance and activity, for their military enterprizes.
By means of a hundred thousand pounds, which they received
Arming of the Scots.
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to mention men’s favourable disposition towards the cause; they soon completed their levies. And having added, to their other forces, the troops which they had recalled from Ireland, they were ready, about the end of the year, to enter England, under the command of their old general, the earl of Leven, with an army of above twenty thousand men.
z
The king, foreseeing this tempest, which was gathering upon him, endeavoured to secure himself by every expedient; and he cast his eye towards Ireland, in hopes that this kingdom, from which his cause had already received so much prejudice, might at length contribute somewhat towards his protection and security.
After the commencement of the Irish insurrection, the English State of Ireland.
parliament, though they undertook the suppression of it, had ever been too much engaged, either in military projects or expeditions at home, to take any effectual step towards finishing that enterprize. They had entered indeed into a contract with the Scots, for sending over an army of ten thousand men into Ireland; and in order to engage that nation in this undertaking, beside giving a promise of pay, they agreed to put Caricfergus into their hands, and to invest their general with an authority quite independent of the English government. These troops, so long as they were allowed to remain, were useful, by diverting the force of the Irish rebels, and protecting in the north the small remnants of the British planters. But except this contract with the Scottish nation, all the other measures of the parliament either were hitherto absolutely insignificant, or tended rather to the prejudice of the protestant cause in Ireland. By continuing their violent persecution, and still more violent menaces against priests and papists, they confirmed the Irish catholics in their rebellion, and cut off all hopes of indulgence and toleration. By disposing beforehand of all the Irish forfeitures to subscribers or adventurers, they rendered all men of property desperate, and seemed to threaten a total extirpation of the natives.
a
And while they thus infused zeal and animosity into the enemy, no measure was pursued, which could tend to support or encourage the protestants, now reduced to the last extremities.
So great is the ascendant, which, from a long course of successes, the English has acquired over the Irish nation, that though the latter, when they receive military discipline among foreigners, are not surpassed by any troops, they have never, in their own country, been able to make any vigorous effort for the defence or recovery of their liberties. In many rencounters, the English, under lord More, Sir William St.
Leger, Sir Frederic Hamilton, and others, had, though under great disadvantages of situation and numbers, put the Irish to rout, and returned in triumph to Dublin. The rebels raised the siege of Tredah, after an obstinate defence made by the garrison.
b
Ormond had obtained two complete victories, at Kilrush and Ross; and had brought relief to all the forts, which were besieged or blockaded in different parts of the kingdom.
c
But notwithstanding these successes, even the most common necessaries of life were wanting to the victorious armies. The Irish, in their wild rage against the British planters, had laid waste the whole kingdom, and were themselves totally unfit, from their habitual sloth and ignorance, to raise any convenience of human life.
During the course of six months, no supplies had come from England; except the fourth part of one small vessel’s lading. Dublin, to save itself from starving, had been PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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obliged to send the greater part of its inhabitants to England. The army had little ammunition, scarcely exceeding forty barrels of gun-powder; not even shoes or cloaths; and for want of food the soldiers had been obliged to eat their own horses.
And though the distress of the Irish was not much inferior;
d
besides that they were more hardened against such extremities, it was but a melancholy reflection, that the two nations, while they continued their furious animosities, should make desolate that fertile island, which might serve to the subsistence and happiness of both.
The justices and council of Ireland had been engaged chiefly by the interest and authority of Ormond, to fall into an entire dependence on the king. Parsons, Temple, Loftus, and Meredith, who favoured the opposite party, had been removed; and Charles had supplied their place by others, better affected to his service. A committee of the English house of commons, which had been sent over to Ireland, in order to conduct the affairs of that kingdom, had been excluded the council, in obedience to
orders transmitted from the king.e
And these were reasons sufficient, besides the great difficulties, under which they themselves laboured, why the parliament was unwilling to send supplies to an army, which though engaged in a cause much favoured by them, was commanded by their declared enemies. They even intercepted some small succours sent thither by the king.
The king, as he had neither money, arms, ammunition, nor provisions to spare from his own urgent wants, resolved to embrace an expedient, which might at once relieve the necessities of the Irish protestants, and contribute to the advancement of his affairs in England. A truce with the rebels, he thought, would enable his subjects in Ireland to provide for their own support, and would procure him the assistance of the army against the English parliament. But as a treaty with a people, so odious for their barbarities, and still more for their religion, might be represented in invidious colours, and renew all those calumnies, with which he had been loaded; it was necessary to proceed with great caution in conducting that measure. A remonstrance from the army was made to the Irish council, representing their intolerable necessities, and craving permission to leave the kingdom: And if that were refused,
We must have recourse,
they said,
to that first and primary law, with which God has endowed all men; we
mean the law of nature, which teaches every creature to preserve itself.
f
Memorials both to the king and parliament were transmitted by the justices and council, in which
their wants and dangers are strongly set forth;g
and though the general expressions in these memorials might perhaps be suspected of exaggeration, yet from the particular facts mentioned, from the confession of the English parliament itself;
h
and from the very nature of things, it is apparent that the Irish protestants were reduced to great extremities;
i
and it became prudent in the king, if not absolutely necessary, to embrace some expedient, which might secure them, for a time, from the ruin and misery, with which they were threatened.
Accordingly, the king gave ordersk
to Ormond and the justices to conclude, for a year, a cessation of arms with the council of Kilkenny, by whom the Irish were governed, and to leave both sides in possession of their present advantages. The parliament, whose business it was to find fault with every measure adopted by the opposite party, and who would not lose so fair an opportunity of reproaching the king with his favour to the Irish papists, exclaimed loudly against this cessation. Among PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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other reasons, they insisted upon the divine vengeance, which England might justly dread for tolerating antichristian idolatry, on pretence of civil contracts and political
agreements.l
Religion, though every day employed as the engine of their own ambitious purposes, was supposed too sacred to be yielded up to the temporal interests or safety of kingdoms.
After the cessation, there was little necessity, as well as no means of subsisting the army in Ireland. The king ordered Ormond, who was entirely devoted to him, to send over considerable bodies of it to England. Most of them continued in his service: But a small part having imbibed in Ireland a strong animosity against the catholics, and hearing the king’s party universally reproached with popery, soon after deserted to the parliament.
Some Irish catholics came over with these troops, and joined the royal army, where they continued the same cruelties and disorders, to which they had been
accustomed.m
The parliament voted, that no quarter, in any action, should ever be given them: But prince Rupert, by making some reprizals, soon repressed this
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LVII
Invasion of the Scots — Battle of Marston-moor — Battle of Cropredy-bridge —