PREFACE

MUCH has been written upon the Revolution of 1688 and its bearing upon Irish history. When regarded as merely ancillary to English history, affairs in Ireland tend to have their real significance obscured or even misconceived, for a purely incidental consideration of the complex circumstances of Ireland in the latter half of the seventeenth century must inevitably fail to reveal all the hidden forces then at work. An attempt to supplement and qualify the results of historical research conducted from the standpoint of English history would therefore seem to be justifiable. By throwing light on the field of inquiry from another point of view we may perhaps aid in dispelling some of the shadows left by the workers who, turning the searchlight of investigation from an English centre of interest, have thrown but slanting beams upon the problems of Ireland. On the other hand, I am not unmindful of the special contributions-many of them of great value and interest, e.g. Klopp's Fall des Hauses Stuart-which have been made to the history of Ireland during the troubled quarter of a century (1688-1714) with which I deal. Yet there appears to be room for a book of moderate dimensions which, by telling the story of Revolutionary Ireland and its settlement as a whole, in the light of all the manuscript and other evidence now available, will avoid the tendency, on the one hand, to

200175

episodical treatment, on the other to parochialism of outlook. The first, by restricting the range of inquiry, serves to furnish the raw material of history rather than a contribution to history regarded as a science. The second, precluding a deep and wide survey, accepts surface eddies as adequate causes of the drifting of the craft upon the stormy sea of Irish history, and ignores, or discerns but imperfectly, the undercurrents whose reality and persistence often provide the only clue to seeming aberrations of policy.

I have therefore tried to place events in their proper focus, to regard them not as isolated fragments capable only of description, and I have tried to emphasise the fact that the history of Ireland during this period is closely bound up with the tissue of European policy, and in particular with that of France Unless the inner meaning of French statecraft be penetrated, the history of Ireland at the time of the Revolution must present a succession of insoluble riddles. Indeed, so far-reaching were the effects, direct and indirect, of the diplomacy of Louis XIV. upon the course of events in Ireland that we feel their influence even in 1910. My examination of the character of the fact we know as the Irish Revolution led me to conclude that the usual account was altogether inadequate, for it did not attach importance to the designs of Louis XIV. upon Spain. These designs induced the French monarch to send James II. to Dublin, for he hoped that the war in Ireland would last ten years. When William was thus employed Louis was left free to pursue his schemes of aggrandisement. Though the plan broke down by the signing of the Treaty of Limerick, yet the efforts of French diplomatists were not exhausted, for throughout the rest of the period Louis used Ireland as a means of attacking England in the rear. My explanation thus asks the reader to go beyond the limits of the revo