Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/140

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128
CONFISCATION IN IRISH HISTORY

third of their former estates wherever the parliament should appoint. It is to be noted that to have borne arms against the parliament was the ground for condemnation here.

Secondly those who since November 10th, 1642, had at any time borne arms against the parliament, but had not served as colonel, etc. were also to receive lands equal to one-third of their former estates wherever Parliament should appoint; but were not to be banished.

Now in these two clauses there is no mention of religion. They hit the Scotch Presbyterians of Ulster and most of the Protestant landowners of Leinster just as hard as they hit the Catholics, for they at one time or another had borne arms against the parliament in the cause of the King.

Even most of the Munster Protestants had for a moment in 1648 and 1649 lapsed into loyalty. It is true that most of them soon repented and by a sudden revolt from the King betrayed Cork, Youghal, Kinsale and Bandon to Cromwell at a moment when his position seemed desperate. He had been beaten back from Waterford, and had cut himself off from his base on the Leinster seaboard. The opportune revolt of these Munster garrisons enabled him to establish himself in a new base, where he was able to rest his famished and plague-stricken army and refit it by means of the sea from England.

Accordingly we find that all those Munster landowners who could prove that they had taken part in securing these towns for the parliament received a free pardon for their momentary adherence to the royalists.