The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗
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- Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
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judgment and temper, declined the contest, put
herself at the head of the reforming party, redressed the
grievance, thanked the Commons, in touching and dignified
language, for their tender care of the general weal, brought back
to herself the hearts of the people, and left to her successors a
memorable example of the way in which it behoves a ruler to deal
with public movements which he has not the means of resisting.
In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is, on many
accounts, one of the most important epochs in our history. It was
then that both Scotland and Ireland became parts of the same
empire with England. Both Scotland and Ireland, indeed, had been
subjugated by the Plantagenets; but neither country had been
patient under the yoke. Scotland had, with heroic energy,
vindicated her independence, had, from the time of Robert Bruce,
been a separate kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part
of the island in a manner which rather gratified than wounded her
national pride. Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the
Second, been able to expel the foreign invaders; but she had
struggled against them long and fiercely. During, the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the English power in that island was
constantly declining, and in the days of Henry the Seventh, sank
to the lowest point. The Irish dominions of that prince consisted
only of the counties of Dublin and Louth, of some parts of Meath
and Kildare, and of a few seaports scattered along the coast. A
large portion even of Leinster was not yet divided into counties.
Munster, Ulster, and Connaught were ruled by petty sovereigns,
partly Celts, and partly degenerate Normans, who had forgotten
their origin and had adopted the Celtic language and manners. But
during the sixteenth century, the English power had made great
progress. The half savage chieftains who reigned beyond the pale
had submitted one after another to the lieutenants of the Tudors.
At length, a few weeks before the death of Elizabeth, the
conquest, which had been begun more than four hundred years
before by Strongbow, was completed by Mountjoy. Scarcely had
James the First mounted the English throne when the last O'Donnel
and O'Neil who have held the rank of independent princes kissed
his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward his writs ran and his judges
held assizes in every part of Ireland; and the English law
superseded the customs which had prevailed among the aboriginal
tribes.
In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to each other,
and were together nearly equal to England, but were much less
thickly peopled than England, and were very far behind England in
wealth and civilisation. Scotland had been kept back by the
sterility of her soil; and, in the midst of light, the thick
darkness of the middle ages still rested on Ireland.
The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic
tribes which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over the
mountainous parts of the northern shires, was of the same blood
with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not
differ from the purest English more than the dialects of
Somersetshire and Lancashire differed from each other. In
Ireland, on the contrary, the population, with the exception of
the small English colony near the coast, was Celtic, and still
kept the Celtic speech and manners.
In natural courage and intelligence both the nations which now
became connected with England ranked high. In perseverance, in
selfcommand, in forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to
success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. The Irish,
on the other hand, were distinguished by qualities which tend to
make men interesting rather than prosperous. They were an ardent
and impetuous race, easily moved to tears or to laughter, to fury
or to love. Alone among the nations of northern Europe they had
the susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and
rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean
Sea. In mental cultivation Scotland had an indisputable
superiority. Though that kingdom was then the poorest in
Christendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the
most favoured countries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food
were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote
Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made
discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of
Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier. The
genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely
endowed' showed itself as yet only in ballads which wild and
rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to
contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry.
Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, preserved her
dignity. Having, during many generations, courageously withstood
the English arms, she was now joined to her stronger neighbour on
the most honourable terms. She gave a King instead of receiving
one. She retained her own constitution and laws. Her tribunals
and parliaments remained entirely independent of the tribunals
and parliaments which sate at Westminster. The administration of
Scotland was in Scottish hands; for no Englishman had any motive
to emigrate northward, and to contend with the shrewdest and most
pertinacious of all races for what was to be scraped together in
the poorest of all treasuries. Nevertheless Scotland by no means
escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected,
but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.
Though in name an independent kingdom, she was, during more than
a century, really treated, in many respects, as a subject
province.
Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a dependency won by the
sword. Her rude national institutions had perished. The English
colonists submitted to the dictation of the mother country,
without whose support they could not exist, and indemnified
themselves by trampling on the people among whom they had
settled. The parliaments which met at Dublin could pass no law
which had not been previously approved by the English Privy
Council. The authority of the English legislature extended over
Ireland. The executive administration was entrusted to men taken
either from England or from the English pale, and, in either
case, regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the Celtic
population.
But the circumstance which, more than any other, has made Ireland
to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. Scotland was
Protestant. In no part of Europe had the movement of the popular
mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent.
The Reformers had vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their
idolatrous sovereign. They would not endure even such a
compromise as had been effected in England. They had established
the Calvinistic doctrine, discipline, and worship; and they made
little distinction between Popery and Prelacy, between the Mass
and the Book of Common Prayer. Unfortunately for Scotland, the
prince whom she sent to govern a fairer inheritance had been so
much annoyed by the pertinacity with which her theologians had
asserted against him the privileges of the synod and the pulpit
that he hated the ecclesiastical polity to which she was fondly
attached as much as it was in his effeminate nature to hate
anything, and had no sooner mounted the English throne than he
began to show an intolerant zeal for the government and ritual of
the English Church.
The Irish were the only people of northern Europe who had
remained true to the old religion. This is to be partly ascribed
to the circumstance that they were some centuries behind their
neighbours in knowledge. But other causes had cooperated. The
Reformation had been a national as well as a moral revolt. It had
been, not only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy,
but also an insurrection of all the branches of the great German
race against an alien domination. It is a most significant
circumstance that no large society of which the tongue is not
Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a
language derived from that of ancient Rome is spoken, the
religion of modern Rome to this day prevails. The patriotism of
the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. The object of their
animosity was not Rome, but England; and they had especial reason
to abhor those English sovereigns who had been the chiefs of the
great schism, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. During the vain
struggle which two generations of Milesian princes maintained
against the Tudors, religious enthusiasm and national enthusiasm
became inseparably blended in the minds of the vanquished race.
The new feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud of
Saxon and Celt. The English conquerors. meanwhile, neglected all
legitimate means of conversion. No care was taken to provide the
vanquished nation with instructors capable of making themselves
understood. No translation of the Bible was put forth in the
Irish language. The government contented itself with setting up a
vast hierarchy of Protestant archbishops, bishops, and rectors,
who did nothing, and who, for doing nothing, were paid out of the
spoils of a Church loved and revered by the great body of the
people.
There was much in the state both of Scotland and of Ireland which
might well excite the painful apprehensions of a farsighted
statesman. As yet, however, there was the appearance of
tranquillity. For the first time all the British isles were
peaceably united under one sceptre.
It should seem that the weight of England among European nations
ought, from this epoch, to have greatly increased. The territory
which her new King governed was, in extent, nearly double that
which Elizabeth had inherited. His empire was the most complete
within itself and the most secure from attack that was to be
found in the world. The Plantagenets and Tudors had been
repeatedly under the necessity of defending themselves against
Scotland while they were engaged in continental war. The long
conflict in Ireland had been a severe and perpetual drain on
their resources. Yet even under such disadvantages those
sovereigns had been highly considered throughout Christendom. It
might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that England,
Scotland, and Ireland combined would form a state second to none
that then existed.
All such expectations were strangely disappointed. On the day of
the accession of James the First, England descended from the rank
which she had hitherto held, and began to he regarded as a power
hardly of the second order. During many years the great British
monarchy, under four successive princes of the House of Stuart,
was scarcely a more important member of the European system than
the little kingdom of Scotland had previously been. This,
however, is little to be regretted. Of James the First, as of
John, it may be said that, if his administration had been able
and splendid, it
herself at the head of the reforming party, redressed the
grievance, thanked the Commons, in touching and dignified
language, for their tender care of the general weal, brought back
to herself the hearts of the people, and left to her successors a
memorable example of the way in which it behoves a ruler to deal
with public movements which he has not the means of resisting.
In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is, on many
accounts, one of the most important epochs in our history. It was
then that both Scotland and Ireland became parts of the same
empire with England. Both Scotland and Ireland, indeed, had been
subjugated by the Plantagenets; but neither country had been
patient under the yoke. Scotland had, with heroic energy,
vindicated her independence, had, from the time of Robert Bruce,
been a separate kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part
of the island in a manner which rather gratified than wounded her
national pride. Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the
Second, been able to expel the foreign invaders; but she had
struggled against them long and fiercely. During, the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the English power in that island was
constantly declining, and in the days of Henry the Seventh, sank
to the lowest point. The Irish dominions of that prince consisted
only of the counties of Dublin and Louth, of some parts of Meath
and Kildare, and of a few seaports scattered along the coast. A
large portion even of Leinster was not yet divided into counties.
Munster, Ulster, and Connaught were ruled by petty sovereigns,
partly Celts, and partly degenerate Normans, who had forgotten
their origin and had adopted the Celtic language and manners. But
during the sixteenth century, the English power had made great
progress. The half savage chieftains who reigned beyond the pale
had submitted one after another to the lieutenants of the Tudors.
At length, a few weeks before the death of Elizabeth, the
conquest, which had been begun more than four hundred years
before by Strongbow, was completed by Mountjoy. Scarcely had
James the First mounted the English throne when the last O'Donnel
and O'Neil who have held the rank of independent princes kissed
his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward his writs ran and his judges
held assizes in every part of Ireland; and the English law
superseded the customs which had prevailed among the aboriginal
tribes.
In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to each other,
and were together nearly equal to England, but were much less
thickly peopled than England, and were very far behind England in
wealth and civilisation. Scotland had been kept back by the
sterility of her soil; and, in the midst of light, the thick
darkness of the middle ages still rested on Ireland.
The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic
tribes which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over the
mountainous parts of the northern shires, was of the same blood
with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not
differ from the purest English more than the dialects of
Somersetshire and Lancashire differed from each other. In
Ireland, on the contrary, the population, with the exception of
the small English colony near the coast, was Celtic, and still
kept the Celtic speech and manners.
In natural courage and intelligence both the nations which now
became connected with England ranked high. In perseverance, in
selfcommand, in forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to
success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. The Irish,
on the other hand, were distinguished by qualities which tend to
make men interesting rather than prosperous. They were an ardent
and impetuous race, easily moved to tears or to laughter, to fury
or to love. Alone among the nations of northern Europe they had
the susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and
rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean
Sea. In mental cultivation Scotland had an indisputable
superiority. Though that kingdom was then the poorest in
Christendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the
most favoured countries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food
were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote
Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made
discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of
Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier. The
genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely
endowed' showed itself as yet only in ballads which wild and
rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to
contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry.
Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, preserved her
dignity. Having, during many generations, courageously withstood
the English arms, she was now joined to her stronger neighbour on
the most honourable terms. She gave a King instead of receiving
one. She retained her own constitution and laws. Her tribunals
and parliaments remained entirely independent of the tribunals
and parliaments which sate at Westminster. The administration of
Scotland was in Scottish hands; for no Englishman had any motive
to emigrate northward, and to contend with the shrewdest and most
pertinacious of all races for what was to be scraped together in
the poorest of all treasuries. Nevertheless Scotland by no means
escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected,
but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.
Though in name an independent kingdom, she was, during more than
a century, really treated, in many respects, as a subject
province.
Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a dependency won by the
sword. Her rude national institutions had perished. The English
colonists submitted to the dictation of the mother country,
without whose support they could not exist, and indemnified
themselves by trampling on the people among whom they had
settled. The parliaments which met at Dublin could pass no law
which had not been previously approved by the English Privy
Council. The authority of the English legislature extended over
Ireland. The executive administration was entrusted to men taken
either from England or from the English pale, and, in either
case, regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the Celtic
population.
But the circumstance which, more than any other, has made Ireland
to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. Scotland was
Protestant. In no part of Europe had the movement of the popular
mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent.
The Reformers had vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their
idolatrous sovereign. They would not endure even such a
compromise as had been effected in England. They had established
the Calvinistic doctrine, discipline, and worship; and they made
little distinction between Popery and Prelacy, between the Mass
and the Book of Common Prayer. Unfortunately for Scotland, the
prince whom she sent to govern a fairer inheritance had been so
much annoyed by the pertinacity with which her theologians had
asserted against him the privileges of the synod and the pulpit
that he hated the ecclesiastical polity to which she was fondly
attached as much as it was in his effeminate nature to hate
anything, and had no sooner mounted the English throne than he
began to show an intolerant zeal for the government and ritual of
the English Church.
The Irish were the only people of northern Europe who had
remained true to the old religion. This is to be partly ascribed
to the circumstance that they were some centuries behind their
neighbours in knowledge. But other causes had cooperated. The
Reformation had been a national as well as a moral revolt. It had
been, not only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy,
but also an insurrection of all the branches of the great German
race against an alien domination. It is a most significant
circumstance that no large society of which the tongue is not
Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a
language derived from that of ancient Rome is spoken, the
religion of modern Rome to this day prevails. The patriotism of
the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. The object of their
animosity was not Rome, but England; and they had especial reason
to abhor those English sovereigns who had been the chiefs of the
great schism, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. During the vain
struggle which two generations of Milesian princes maintained
against the Tudors, religious enthusiasm and national enthusiasm
became inseparably blended in the minds of the vanquished race.
The new feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud of
Saxon and Celt. The English conquerors. meanwhile, neglected all
legitimate means of conversion. No care was taken to provide the
vanquished nation with instructors capable of making themselves
understood. No translation of the Bible was put forth in the
Irish language. The government contented itself with setting up a
vast hierarchy of Protestant archbishops, bishops, and rectors,
who did nothing, and who, for doing nothing, were paid out of the
spoils of a Church loved and revered by the great body of the
people.
There was much in the state both of Scotland and of Ireland which
might well excite the painful apprehensions of a farsighted
statesman. As yet, however, there was the appearance of
tranquillity. For the first time all the British isles were
peaceably united under one sceptre.
It should seem that the weight of England among European nations
ought, from this epoch, to have greatly increased. The territory
which her new King governed was, in extent, nearly double that
which Elizabeth had inherited. His empire was the most complete
within itself and the most secure from attack that was to be
found in the world. The Plantagenets and Tudors had been
repeatedly under the necessity of defending themselves against
Scotland while they were engaged in continental war. The long
conflict in Ireland had been a severe and perpetual drain on
their resources. Yet even under such disadvantages those
sovereigns had been highly considered throughout Christendom. It
might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that England,
Scotland, and Ireland combined would form a state second to none
that then existed.
All such expectations were strangely disappointed. On the day of
the accession of James the First, England descended from the rank
which she had hitherto held, and began to he regarded as a power
hardly of the second order. During many years the great British
monarchy, under four successive princes of the House of Stuart,
was scarcely a more important member of the European system than
the little kingdom of Scotland had previously been. This,
however, is little to be regretted. Of James the First, as of
John, it may be said that, if his administration had been able
and splendid, it
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