Ulster settlers from Scotland, being regarded as kinsmen, were not to be molested. On the evening A.D. 1641 of the 22nd of October, when the preparations had been completed in Dublin, a man named Owen O'Connolly, to whom Mac Mahon had confided the secret, went to Sir William Parsons, one of the Lords Justices, and told him of the plot. Parsons at first gave no heed to the story, for he perceived that O'Connolly was half drunk. But on consultation with his colleague Sir John Borlase, they arrested Maguire and Mac Mahon on the morning of the 23rd: these were subsequently tried in London and hanged. Rory O'Moore and some others then in Dublin escaped. Instant measures were taken to put the city in a state of defence.

But though Dublin was saved, the rising broke out on the 23rd all through the north. Sir Phelim O'Neill, by a treacherous stratagem, obtained possession of

Charlemont Fort. From illustration in "Kilkenny Archæological Journal,"
1883-4, p. 320: and this from a photograph,

Charlemont fort; and the rebels took Newry, Dungannon, Castleblayney, and many smaller stations. Sir Phelim exhibited a forged commission giving him authority, which he alleged he had received from King Charles,

U

to which was fraudulently attached the great seal he had found in one of the castles.

At the end of a week nearly all Ulster was in the hands of the rebels, and Sir Phelim had an army of 30,000 men, armed with knives, pitchforks, scythes, and every weapon they could procure. During this week the original orders of the leaders were carried out, and there was hardly any bloodshed. But Sir Phelim, who had none of the great qualities of his illustrious kinsmen, was a bad general, and soon lost all control over his irregular army. Many of those who had risen up were persons that had been deprived of their lands, who after a time broke loose from all discipline, and wreaked their vengeance without restraint and without mercy on the settlers. The country farm-houses all over the settlements were attacked by detached parties, under no orders and checked by no discipline. Multitudes were stripped and turned out half naked from house and home-old and young, men, women, and children; and hundreds, vainly trying to make their way to Dublin, or to other Government stations, perished by the wayside, of exposure, hardship, and hunger. But there was even worse: for numbers were murdered, often with great cruelty. Some of these excesses were carried out by the orders of O'Neill himself; but the greatest number were the acts of irresponsible persons taking vengeance for their own private wrongs. The outrages actually committed were bad enough; but the daily reports that reached England magnified them tenfold, and excited the utmost horror among the English people.

During this terrible outbreak of fury, many Protestants were protected by individual Catholics. The priests exerted themselves to save life, often at great

personal risk, sometimes hiding the poor fugitives under the very altar cloths. The Protestant bishop of Kilmore, Dr. Bedell, who was very popular, was not molested; and many fugitive settlers had a safe asylum in his house. The people at last confined him in Cloghoughter Castle, merely to protect him; and on his death in February 1642, they attended his funeral in crowds, including a large military force sent by the Irish commanders, as a mark of respect and regret.

The numbers of victims have been by some writers enormously exaggerated: but Dr. Warner, an English writer, a Protestant clergyman, who made every effort to come at the truth, believes that in the first two years of the rebellion, 4000 were murdered, and that 8000 died of ill usage and exposure. Even this estimate is probably in excess.

The sanguinary Ulster episode of this memorable year reminds us of what took place on a much larger scale forty years before (pp. 273, 274). One was an unpremeditated outburst of merciless popular rage, resulting in great suffering and loss of life: the other the slower and surer destruction of much larger numbers, by the cool and carefully planned arrangements of Mountjoy.

But we must not suppose that outrages were confined to the rebels. There were wholesale murders also on the other side; and the numbers of the Irish that were killed all over the country in places where there had been no rising, far exceeded those of the settlers that had fallen victims in Ulster. In November, the Scottish garrison of Carrickfergus sallied out and slaughtered a great number of harmless people in Island Magee, where there had been no disturbance of any kind. The two lords justices sent parties of military from Dublin through the country all round, who massacred all the

people they met, whether engaged in rebellion or not. Their general, Sir Charles Coote, committed horrible cruelties, especially in Wicklow, surpassing the worst excesses of the rebels, killing and torturing women and infants, as well as men. In Munster, Sir William St. Leger slaughtered vast numbers of innocent persons, in order, as he said, to avenge the cruelties committed in Ulster, and forced the people of the province, the AngloIrish as well as the old Irish native race, to rise in rebellion, much against their will.

Towards the end of the year, the old Anglo-Irish nobility and gentry of the Pale, who were all Catholics and all thoroughly loyal, were treated by A.D. 1641 the two lords justices, Parsons and Borlase, with brutal harshness, merely because they were Catholics. He insulted them in every possible way, and Coote burned many of their houses: so that they were forced to combine for their own protection; and at last they were driven to join the ranks of the insurgents. There could not have been more unfit men at the head of affairs in this critical time than these lords justices; and their conduct is condemned by historians of all shades of opinion. In spite of the remonstrances of their best counsellors they acted in such a manner as to spread the trouble instead of allaying it; so that in a short time the rebellion had extended through all Ireland.

T the opening of 1642, there were in the distracted country four distinct parties, each with an army :

FIRST The Old Irish, whose leader

:

was Rory O'Moore. These were oppressed by Plantations and by Religious hardships, and they aimed at total separation from England. Their army was chiefly confined to Ulster.

SECOND: The Old Anglo-Irish Catholics, nearly all of the middle and south of Ireland. These suffered on account of their religion as much as the old Irish h; and also by the Plantations, though not to the same extent; and they wanted religious and civil liberty, but not separation from England. These two parties represented all the Catholics of Ireland: but there was much jealousy and distrust between them; and this disunion ruined their cause in the end.

THIRD: The Puritans, including the Presbyterians and Scots of Ulster, under general Monro. At this time King Charles I. was getting deeper and deeper into trouble with the parliament in England; and of