JAMES II AND IRELAND

The fanaticism of the anti-Catholics eventually backfired to the advantage of the monarchy. Efforts to exclude James, the duke of York, from succeeding Charles failed and, in February 1685, he became king. A paradoxical situation therefore existed whereby the king, the de jure head of the Church of England (and Ireland), was a Roman Catholic. This can be seen as a classic example of English political pragmatism whereby theoretical consistency was disregarded in favor of political stability. The Tories, who were high church in their religious sentiment and hostile toward concessions for Catholics, feared that any interference with the natural hereditary succession would open the door for parliamentary selection of a monarch, which could ultimately lead to republicanism, the very thing from which they had escaped with the demise of Cromwellianism. They were also confident that a Catholic reign would be confined only to James's lifetime, as his Catholic wife was assumed to have entered menopause and so be unlikely to bear him a successor son, and his daughters by his late first wife, who would be his successors, were both Protestants.

Suspicions of James by Protestants in England were roused when his cousin, Louis XIV of France, revoked, in the same year that James had ascended the throne, the Edict of Nantes, the award of partial religious toleration to French Protestants granted a century before by his ancestor, Henry IV. The revocation required French Protestants to either conform as Catholics or leave the kingdom. Not only were English and Irish Protestants disturbed by Louis's policy, they were also turned off by James's very impolitic advancement of the position of his co-religionists, especially in Ireland. The complications of the situation were magnified when the queen, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son. He would take precedence over his half sisters in succession and be raised a Catholic. The implications were that the royal family henceforth would be Catholic with the probability of Catholicism being reestablished.

With regard to Ireland, James gave signs of leaning toward the Catholic interest in dismissing Ormond as lord lieutenant. Earlier he had given command over army regiments in Ireland to Richard Talbot and Justin MacCarthy, both Catholics, who were exempted from taking the Oath of Supremacy. Protestant suspicions might have been partly allayed by Michael Boyle, the archbishop of Dublin in the established church, and Sir Arthur Forbes, the earl of Granard, both lord justices, being designated to take over the government in Ormond's place. However, significant political influence fell to Talbot who was elevated as earl of Tyrconnell (the title held earlier by the O'Donnells). The following year he was placed in command of the Irish army in which increasing numbers of Catholics were not only recruited to the ranks but also commissioned as officers. Catholics were also appointed as judges, admitted to town corporations, and given seats on the Privy Council. That same year Tyrconnell accompanied a Catholic lawyer, Richard Nagle, to England, petitioning for readjustment of the land settlement of the Cromwellian era. In February 1687 he replaced Clarendon, who had advised against any alteration of the land settlement, to become lord deputy. In June he received a royal warrant authorizing him to issue new charters to cities and incorporate towns with large Catholic populations. This insured that many more Catholics would be returned to any future parliament. Catholics were appointed as sheriffs in nearly every county, which would also guarantee the election of Catholic members from the counties. In August Tyrconnell met with the king to discuss prospective legislation for a future parliament.

Many Protestants in Ireland panicked and great numbers fled to England. Their fears had been fired by the publication a few years earlier of Edmund Bor-lase's History of the execrable Irish rebellion with its exaggerated account of the 1641 uprising. In 1687 a satirical song critical of the "Teague" (Irish Catholic) lord deputy and his intention to "cut all de English throat, Lillibulero bullen-a-la," gained rapid popularity among the Protestant population in Ireland.

In England James issued a Declaration of Indulgences granting religious toleration and exemption from the existing statues penalizing Catholics and nonconforming Protestants. The declaration was extended to Ireland as well. This exercise of royal prerogative in overturning parliament's will annoyed even the Tories, the king's natural allies, as several bishops refused to have the declaration read in their churches. James responded by having the bishops charged and tried. Although the bishops were acquitted, the very trial and the birth of a male child to the queen a few weeks before prompted a coalition of leading Whigs and Tories to invite the husband of the king's daughter Mary, William of Orange, the ruler of the Netherlands, to invade England. To assist James against the prospective invasion, Tyrconnell sent a regiment of Irish troops to London. The presence of these largely Catholic soldiers confirmed English suspicion of

James's ultimate Catholicizing plans for the nation. Ironically, in view of later events, these troops had been removed from Ulster where they would have been most needed.

William landed in England in November and James had fled to France before Christmas. In February William and Mary were recognized as monarchs upon their acceptance of a Bill of Rights limiting the royal prerogative and asserting parliamentary powers, legal due process, and religious tolerance (except for Catholics). This was the Glorious Revolution, so benevolent in Anglo-American history, but so deleterious in its immediate effect on the Catholic population of Ireland. William and Mary's accession to the monarchy meant that James was regarded as king only by the authorities in Ireland. Even here, there were many, especially among the Presbyterians in Ulster, who rejected him. For instance, in December the gates of the city of Londonderry were shut before the regiment of the Earl of Antrim, one of James's commanders in Ireland, and Protestants in Bandon, County Cork, attacked a Jacobite (pro-James) garrison.

The Irish situation must be seen in the context of the broader European scene. The League of Augsburg, in which William was a major mover, had been formed three years earlier to inhibit the threatened expansionism of Louis XIV of France. Among William's allies in the alliance were the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor and the pope. Louis, on the other hand, was the solitary international champion of James, whom he hoped to use to distract his opponent William. With Louis's blessing, James returned to Ireland in March accompanied by the French ambassador and French officers. A Jacobite army defeated Ulster Protestants in County Down on March 21, and three weeks later confronted them at Clady in County Derry. However, the city of Londonderry, to which many Protestants had fled, refused entry to James's forces, and a siege of the city began. The following month the Irish parliament, for which Tyrconnell had been preparing, met.