Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/114

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Charles II

Settlement, to dissolve the commission of enquiry, to dismiss all Papists from positions of public trust, and to appoint none for the future; to banish all Popish prelates, to suppress all Popish schools, to annul all pardons granted to Papists for acts committed during the civil war, to permit no Papists to inhabit the kingdom "unless duly licensed," and to instruct the Lord Lieutenant to take measures for "the encouragement of the English planters and Protestant interest, and the suppression of the insolencies and disorders of the Irish Papists." The "pretended Archbishop of Dublin, for his notorious disloyalty to your Majesty, and disobedience and contempt of your laws," and his brother Richard, "who hath notoriously assumed to himself the title of agent of the Roman Catholics of Ireland," were particularly singled out for the vengeance of the Parliament.90 Resistance was impossible. Charles pledged himself to maintain the Act of Settlement; the commission of enquiry was dissolved; and the Catholics were once more excluded from the magistracy and from the corporations. These concessions seem to have satisfied the Protestant party; and the more violent measures which the Commons had demanded were not insisted on. It should be added that Lord Essex, although sent to Ireland to

102