Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry | Page 7

for this purpose were such as the English Parliament had pronounced unconstitutional. He impeached the corporate charters by _quo warranto_, brought to trial before judges whom he influenced, as all his predecessors had done. He invaded the customs of the universities, as having a legal right to do so. He suspended the penal laws, and punished those who disobeyed his liberal but unpopular proclamations. Some noble zealots, the Russells and Sidneys, crossed his path in vain; but a few bold caballers, the Danbys, the Shaftesburys, and Churchills, by urging him to despotic acts, and the people to resistance, brought on a crisis; when, availing themselves of it, they called in a foreign army and drove out James, and swore he had abdicated; expelled the Prince of Wales, and falsely called him bastard; made terms with William, that he should have the crown and privy purse, and they the actual government; and ended by calling their selfish and hypocritical work, "a popular and glorious revolution."
It is needless to follow up James's quarrel with the university of Oxford, and his unsuccessful prosecution of the seven Bishops on the 29th of June, 1688, who, emboldened by the prospect of a revolution, refused to read his proclamation of indulgence. From the day of their acquittal, James was lost. Letters were circulated throughout England[14] and Ireland, declaring the young Prince of Wales (who was born 10th June) spurious, and containing many other falsehoods, so as to shake men's souls with rumours, and arouse popular prejudices. The army was tampered with; the nobles and clergy were in treaty with Holland. James not only refused to retract his policy till it was too late; but refused, too, the offer of Louis to send him French troops.
Similar means had been used by and against him in Ireland. Tyrconnell, who had replaced Clarendon as Lord Lieutenant in 1686, got in the charters of the corporations, reconstructed the army, and used every means of giving the Roman Catholics that share in the government of this country to which their numbers entitled them. And, on the other hand, the Protestant nobles joined the English conspiracy, and adopted the English plan of false plots and forged letters.
At length, on 4th November, 1688, Prince William landed at Torbay with 15,000 veterans. James attempted to bear up, but his nearest and dearest, his relatives and his favourites, deserted him in the hour of his need. It seems not excessive to say that there never was a revolution in which so much ingratitude, selfishness, and meanness were displayed. There is not one great genius or untainted character eminent in it. Yet it succeeded. On the 18th of December, William entered London; on the 23rd, James sailed for France; and in the February following the English convention declared he had _abdicated_.
These dates are, as Plowden remarks, important; for though James's flight, on the 23rd of December, was the legal pretence for insurrection in the summer of 1689, yet negotiations had been going on with Holland through 1687 and 1688,[15] and the Northern Irish formed themselves into military corps, and attacked the soldiers of the crown before Enniskillen, on the _first week_ in December; and on the 7th December the gates of Derry were shut in the face of the king's troops,[16] facts which should be remembered in judging the loyalty of the two parties.

[5] King's "State of the Protestants." Harris's "Life of King William," folio, Dublin, 1749, book 8. Leland's "History of Ireland," vol. 3, book 6, chaps. 5 and 6. Lesley's "Answer to King's State of the Protestants," London, 1692. Curry's "Review of the Civil Wars of Ireland." Plowden's "Historical Review of Ireland; also History of Ireland," vol. i., c. 9. Jones's "Reply to an anonymous writer from Belfast, signed Portia," Dublin, 1792.
[6] Thorpe's MSS.
[7] London, 2 vols. 4to, edited by Rev. J. Clarke.
[8] Paris, 1825, 3 vols. 8vo.
[9] Spenser's "View"; Fynes Moryson's "Itinerary"; Captain Lee's "Memoir"; Harris's "Letters"; and Carte's "Ormonde."
[10] See the proofs of this collected in Carey's "Vindici? Hibernic?."
[11] Milton's "Eikonoclastes"; Warner's "History of the Rebellion"; Carey's "Vindici?"; and Pamphlets, Libraries of Trinity College and the Dublin Society.
[12] Sir W. Petty's "Political Anatomy of Ireland"; Lawrence's "Interest of Ireland"; "Curry's Review"; "Carte's Life and Letters of Ormonde," &c.
[13] Hallam's "Constitutional History," v. 3, p. 588, 3rd edition.
[14] Speke's "Memoirs."
[15] See the Declaration of Union, dated 21st March, 1688, in the Appendix to Walker's "Account of the Siege of Derry."
[16] These acts were done in good faith by the people, instigated by the devices of the nobles. A letter, now admitted to have been forged, was dispersed by Lord Mount Alexander, announcing the design of the Roman Catholics to murder the Protestants.
CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE PARLIAMENT.--THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
James landed at Kinsale, 12th March, 1689, about a month after the election