Название: The History of Ireland: 17th Century
Автор: Bagwell Richard
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
isbn: 4064066393564
isbn:
Strafford proposes to drive out all the Scots, 1640.
‘Under Scots’ to be deported to remote places.
When Strafford was impeached, two witnesses swore that at the time of Stewart’s trial he had openly threatened to root out stock and branch all Scots who would not conform, and had called them rebels and traitors. This no doubt was said hastily and in anger, but he afterwards expressed the same sentiments when he had had time, plenty of time, to think. Writing to Radcliffe from York more than a year later he proposed ‘to banish all the under Scots in Ulster by proclamation,’ grounded upon a request from his subservient Irish Parliament. By ‘under Scots’ he meant all who had not given hostage to fortune by acquiring considerable estates in land. There were 40,000 able-bodied Scots ready to welcome Argyle if he landed in Ireland, and that chief was cunning enough to tempt ‘the mere Irish, the ancient dependents of the O’Neills in that province,’ to strike a blow for lands and liberty. A vote of this kind in the Irish Parliament would help the King much, for it would infallibly create ‘a perpetual distrust and hatred’ between England and Scotland, and would add to his Majesty’s reputation in foreign parts. The banishment might be called conditional upon the continuance of hostilities. As to the owners of ‘considerable estates,’ they were but few, and the loss to them of all their tenants and servants was nothing to the general peace which would follow the expulsion of the ‘under Scots, who are so numerous and so ready for insurrection,’ and who were already armed. Even those who had taken the Black Oath were to be treated as prospective rebels. Shipping was to be provided at once, and the exiles landed in some bays or lochs where the Campbell galleys could not reach them. Radcliffe, who was in Dublin, kept this letter to himself, for he saw that the plan was impossible, and he knew that the House of Commons there was already getting out of hand. Strafford believed that something equivalent to a state of siege existed, and that he was therefore justified in the most extreme measures. History may make excuses, but to the Long Parliament he was the man who had encouraged them to oppose the King, who had then gone over to the side of prerogative, receiving titles and power as the price of desertion, and who was ready to dragoon better men into submission. To honest Scotch Covenanters he was of course the arch-enemy, and those who espoused their cause from selfish motives knew that his interests were not theirs.[214]
FOOTNOTES:
[206] Adair’s True Narrative, 26; Mant’s Church of Ireland, 457; Blair’s statement in Reid’s Presbyterian Church, i. 103.
[207] Wentworth to Bramhall, September 12, 1634, in Rawdon Papers; Report of the Belfast conference in Reid’s Presbyterian Church, i. 195 and Appx. iv; Livingston’s narrative, ib. 204–6.
[208] Bramhall to Ussher, April 26, 1641, in his Works, i. xc; Liber Munerum, v. 113; Carte’s Ormonde, i. 96; Wentworth to the King, September 2, 1639 (from Dublin) in Strafford Letters, and to Radcliffe, September 23 (from Covent Garden), in Whitaker’s Radcliffe, 182; Bedell to Ward, April 23, 1640; in Two Biographies, 365; Irish Lords’ Journal, March 31, 1640; Hickson’s Irish Massacres, ii. 6–8. Corbet’s ‘Ungirding of the Scottish Armour’ was licensed in Dublin, May 6, 1639, by Edward Parry, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe, on behalf of the Archbishop of Dublin. It is in the form of a dialogue between Covenanter and anti-Covenanter. The dedication of six pages to Wentworth contains some strong language about the ‘fiery zealous faction’ dominant in Scotland. ‘The best of them is as a briar; the most upright is a thorn hedge; they do evil with both hands earnestly, hunting every man his brother with a net. They are gone in the way of Cain, etc.’ Corbet’s much better known Lysimachus Nicanor, dated January 1, 1640 (n.s.) was probably printed in Dublin, but has no printer’s name and no imprimatur. He is believed to have had assistance both from Bramhall and Maxwell. Baillie (Letters, i. 243) wrongly attributes it to Henry Leslie, and calls the author ‘a mad scenic railer.’ It purports to be the letter of a Jesuit, who congratulates the Scots on their approach to the views of the Society concerning resistance to kings. See the article on Corbet in Dict. СКАЧАТЬ