HISTORY OF IRELA N D. CHAPTER I. WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. THE accession of James the second opened the third and latest era of Irish history, the war of the Revolution. The wars of Ireland since the connexion with Britain form a series of three long and fearful struggles, connected by the two short periods of the first James's, and the second Charles's reigns, -a ponderous weight of war held together by those two narrow links. The reigns of James the first, and Charles the second, were each about twenty years, or little more. The first divided the long wars of Elizabeth's reign from the Cromwellian wars. The second interposed between the latter and the war of the Revolution. The wars of Elizabeth's reign were purely struggles for power and property. Upon both sides religion was spoken of, and appealed to; but upon both it was a mere pretence. O'Neil and Desmond appealed to the Pope, and the Pope's religion, as a point of union and sympathy with the powers of the Continent and the multitude at home. But there is reason to think that those chiefs were little interested for either. On the other hand, the British adventurers of the same period appealed to the Protestant faith, to Elizabeth, and to Britain, with a view to enlist the Reformation and all its interests and promoters under their banners. But the abject condition of the reformed church in Ireland during that reign, is a proof how little they regarded it. While they professed to wage war for the cause of the church, they plundered it without mercy or remorse; and treated its ministers with the scorn and contempt which they too much deserved. In point of fact the popery laws were hardly enforced in Elizabeth's reign; not because there was any want of inclination to press the edge of the law as keenly as possible on the people, but there was a want of power. The instrument which those laws furnished was, however, frequently used with success to oppress or exasperate particular individuals or districts, and force them into violence or rebellion. |