RESTORATION IRELAND

Cromwell died on September 3, 1658, and was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son, Richard. In Ireland his other son, Henry, had succeeded Fleetwood as lord deputy and then lord lieutenant. However, within a few months Richard resigned as sympathy increased in England for the restoration of the Long Parliament whose place had been taken by the Protectorate parliaments. Similar sentiment was developing in Ireland for the restoration of the parliament that Wentworth had called in 1640, and Henry Cromwell also resigned. The military under General George Monck forced the rump of the Long Parliament to restore its full membership, which body then dissolved and allowed a representative Convention Parliament to assemble, enabling the monarchy to be restored in the person of Charles II, the son of the executed king. A similar pattern occurred in Ireland where a military group headed by Sir Hardress Waller proclaimed their support of the restoration of the earlier parliament. Soon after, Lord Broghill (Boyle), Sir Charles Coote, both of whom were former royalists, and Major William Bury, a devout Presbyterian, all men who had done well out of the Cromwellian settlement, were appointed commissioners for Ireland. On May 14, Charles II was proclaimed king of Ireland.

The major problem confronting the restored king was to satisfy, both in England and even more in Ireland, the property aspirations of those who had been supporters of the monarchy while in exile, including Catholics, and those who had gained from the revolution, but who had not wanted to go any further in political or religious radicalization. In Ireland the latter included many of the New English, who earlier had supported the monarchy, but who had accepted the Protectorate and even its religious settlement in spite of their Episcopal or Presbyterian beliefs. Charles attempted to bridge the gap by issuing a declaration in November 1660 confirming the holdings of the Cromwellian soldiers, but also providing for "innocent" Catholics who had supported the monarchy. Thirty-six commissioners were appointed to give effect to the insurmountable task announced in the declaration. Then, more than a year and a half later, the Irish parliament passed an Act of Settlement to resolve the conflicting claims.

The act confirmed the holdings of the soldiers and the adventurers. It also allowed certain owners dispossessed of their lands to make claims for restoration to a court of commissioners appointed for that purpose. Should any lands being restored have come into the possession of the adventurers or soldiers they would be restored to the original owner with the latter receiving compensation with other land. Various categories of eligibility for having land restored existed: ensignmen, who had served the king abroad; article men, who had accepted the 1646 or 1649 treaties between the Confederates and Ormond; and innocents, who had not taken part in rebellion. In fact, awards were made only to "innocents," and, among the thousands of applications, only a few hundred received awards. Even at that, the task of compensating the Cromwellian soldiers, who had to return land to the innocents, with other land was almost insurmountable. A failed conspiracy in March 1663 of resentful soldiers led by Colonel Thomas Blood illustrated the strong animosity among many at Charles's efforts to satisfy the Catholics.

Finally, in December 1665, the Irish Parliament passed begrudgingly an Act of Explanation, which required the soldiers and adventurers to give up one-third of their lands to be restored to the innocents, but that no further claims of innocence were to be heard. In addition, certain named individuals were also given back their lands. The general effect was that the percentage of land owned by Catholic, which had dropped from 60 percent in 1640 to 8 percent in 1660, climbed back to 20 percent. However, almost all the Catholics receiving land back were Old English. Dispossessed Gaelic owners often acquiesced in being the stronger tenants of the Old English, or they turned to outlawry.

Charles appointed an old Cavalier ally, Ormond, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, just as he had appointed Edward Hyde, the earl of Clarendon, as chancellor in England. However, in Ireland, as in England, he had to contend with the reality of a parliament that had assumed much greater power for itself, especially with regard to royal revenues. The king acquiesced in abandoning traditional prerogative or feudal revenues, such as the Court of Wards, in return for a parliamentary allocation of revenues for life. In fact, those revenues would not amount to as much as would be needed. In Ireland, the revenues given to the king included customs and excise duties, a hearth tax with a retrogressive character especially onerous to the poor, and a quit-rent on the lands restored by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation. Despite later needs for increased revenue, Charles did not call another Irish parliament for the rest of his reign after the first had been dissolved in August 1666.

Restoration Ireland was marked by a degree of religious toleration, reflective of weariness at the religious turmoil that had fueled the wars of the previous generation. Charles himself was tolerant and even anxious, if possible, to treat his Catholic subjects equitably. The Episcopal character of the Church of Ireland was restored, as were its properties. The primacy was given to John Bramhill. Twelve other bishops were appointed, all high church in attitude. At first religious uniformity within the church was sought, including even the dispossession of Presbyterian-minded ministers in Ulster. The heart of the problem was the

Presbyterian wish to be the established religion, while the more orthodox of the restored hierarchy did not want to allow Presbyterians to serve as ministers within the established church. There was also suspicion that many Presbyterians had been implicated in the attempted coup of Colonel Blood in 1663.

In 1666, several months before it was dissolved, the Irish parliament, like the English parliament, passed an Act of Uniformity imposing the Book of Common Prayer on the established church, mandating ordination of clergy by bishops, and requiring schoolteachers to be licensed by the bishops of the established church. The Presbyterians were not interfered with in their own church system, but they were excluded from the established church and they lost posts they had held within it. However, in a sign of political pragmatism prevailing over religious dogmatism and of the hope to abate religious and political extremism, in 1672 a regium donum, that is, an outright gift to Presbyterian ministers, which would be given irregularly in lieu of their presence within the established church, was first awarded.

In a sign of confidence by Catholics that things would improve, Edmund O'Reilly, the archbishop of Armagh, felt confident enough to return to Ireland in October 1659, months before the restoration. In an attempt to gain greater sympathy for the Catholics and overcome the suspicions of their loyalty that had stemmed from the papal excommunication of Elizabeth in the previous century, Peter Walsh, a Franciscan priest, an agent for the Catholic hierarchy, drafted a "remonstrance." It declared the allegiance of the Catholics to the king and disclaimed any papal authority to absolve them from allegiance. A statement by an assembly of Catholics in 1666 denied papal power of deposition and acknowledged the king's divine right in temporal matters. But the papacy and the Irish hierarchy refused to accept the full implications of the remonstrance or the declaration. The government continued to regard Catholics as undeserving of legal toleration. But whatever their legal position, the Catholics in fact received significant toleration as evidenced by O'Reilly's having visited Ireland several times, by the other exiled bishops being able to maintain contact with their dioceses through vicars, and by a general functioning of the church and its schools.

Population estimates for Ireland in the first decade of the restoration are put at about 1,200,000, of whom 800,000 were Catholics and the other 400,000 were split primarily between members of the established Church of Ireland and the Presbyterians, but with some Independents, Anabaptists, and a growing number of Quakers, which variety would make informal tolerance almost requisite. The economy had improved, evidenced by the growth of Dublin and other towns. Cattle become a major source of income, assisted by the ideal grazing character of the Irish landscape and the minimal amount of labor required. So successful was the export of cattle to England that navigation legislation— the forms of protective legislation that would plague Anglo-Irish relations for more than another century, as well as provoke the American Revolution— began to be employed. In July 1663 the English parliament passed an act restricting both importation of Irish cattle into England and Irish trade with the colonies. Four years later further legislation forbade the importation of Irish cattle into England. In 1671 direct imports from the colonies to Irish ports were prohibited. Disappointment at the failure of Ireland to provide a greater positive cash flow to the monarch, already restricted by an impecunious English parliament, prompted Charles to replace the ever-faithful Ormond as lord lieutenant with John Robartes in 1669.