Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry | Page 8

"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 of William and Mary by the English convention. He entered
Dublin in state on the 24th March, accompanied by D'Avaux, as
Ambassador from France, and a splendid court. His first act was to
issue five proclamations--the first, requiring the return and aid of his
Irish absentee subjects; the second, urging upon the local authorities the
suppression of robberies and violence which had increased in this
unsettled state of affairs; the third, encouraging the bringing provisions
for his army; the fourth, creating a currency of such metal as he had,
conceiving it preferable to a paper currency (a gold or silver currency
was out of his power, for of the two millions promised him by France,
he only got £150,000); the fifth proclamation summoned a parliament
for the 7th May, 1689.
James also issued a proclamation promising liberty of conscience,
justice and protection[17] to all; and, after receiving many
congratulatory addresses, set out for Derry to press the blockade. On
the 29th April he returned to Dublin. On the 7th May Ireland possessed
a complete and independent government. Leaving the castle, over
which floated the national flag, James proceeded in full procession to
the King's Inns, where the Parliament sat, and the Commons having
assembled at the bar of the Peers, James entered, "with Robe and
Crown," and addressed the Commons in a speech full of manliness and
dignity. At the close of the speech, the Chancellor of Ireland, Lord
Gosworth, directed the Commons to retire and make choice of a
Speaker. In half an hour the Commons returned and presented Sir
Richard Nagle as their Speaker, a man of great endowments and high
character. The Speaker was accepted, and the Houses adjourned.
The peers who sat in this parliament amounted to fifty-four. Among
these fifty-four were six dignitaries of the Protestant Church, one duke,
ten earls, sixteen viscounts, and twenty-one barons. It contained the
oldest families of the country--O'Brien and DeCourcy, MacCarty and
Bermingham, De Burgo and Maguire, Butler and Fitzpatrick. The

bishops of Meath, Cork, Ossory, Limerick, and Waterford, and the
Protestant names of Aungier, Le Poer, and Forbes sat with the
representatives of the great Roman Catholic houses of Plunket,
Barnewell, Dillon, and Nugent. Nor were some fresher honours
wanting; Talbot and Mountcashel were the darlings of the people, the
trust of the soldiery, the themes of bards.
King's impeachment of this parliament is amusing enough. His first
charge is, that if the House were full, the majority would have been
Protestant. Now, if the majority preferred acting as insurgents under the
Prince of Orange, to attending to their duties in the Irish house of peers,
it was their own fault. Certain it is, the most violent might safely have
attended, for the earls of Granard and Longford and the bishop of
Meath not only attended, but carried on a bold and systematic
opposition. And so far was the House from resenting this, that they
committed the sheriff of Dublin to prison for billeting an officer at the
bishop of Meath's. Yet the bishop had not merely resisted their
favourite repeal of the Settlement, but, in doing so, had stigmatized
their fathers and some of themselves as murderous rebels.
King's next charge is, that the attainders of many peers were reversed to
admit them. Now this is unsupported evidence against fact, and simply
a falsehood. Then he complains of the new creations. They were just
_five_ in number; and of these five, two were great legal
dignitaries--the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; the
third was Colonel MacCarty, of the princely family of Desmond, and a
distinguished soldier with a great following; the others, Brown, Lord
Kenmare; and Bourke, Lord Bofin (son of Lord Clanricarde), men of
high position in their counties.
Fitton, Lord Gosworth, occupied the woolsack. That he was a man of
capacity, if not of character, may be fairly presumed from his party
having put him in so important an office in such trying times.[18] He
certainly had neither faction nor following to bring with him. Nor was
he treated by his party below what his rank entitled him to. The
appointments in his court were not interfered with: his decrees were not
impeached, and in the council he sat above even Herbert, the Lord

Chancellor of