III. CHAP. presbyterians, members of a Church dominant in their own country and the suppression of which in Ireland no statesman would venture to undertake. They received a quasi-recognition by the contribution called the Regium Donum to the support of their ministers, amounting to £1,200. Originally granted by Charles II., but dropped by his successor, it was maintained by Godolphin, despite the protests of the convocation of Ireland and of both houses of the Irish parliament. The governing classes, both lay and clerical, were united against presbyterianism. The "sin of schism," which the bishops saw in it, had a side which obtruded itself upon the lay landowner. "The true point," wrote Archbishop King, "between them and the gentlemen is whether the presbyterians and lay elders in every parish shall have the greatest influence over the people, to lead them as they please, or the landlords over their tenants." It was hoped that with the resignation of Rochester in February, 1703, the dissension which he had infused into Irish protestantism would have spent its force. Unhappily, the Duke of Ormonde, who succeeded him, was controlled from England by Rochester's ally Nottingham. Some mystery, however, still hangs about the origin of the blow dealt at the Irish nonconformists by the hands of the English ministry of 1704. A bill was passed by the Irish house of commons in November, 1703, “to prevent the growth of popery" 2 framed upon the lines of the similar act of 1700.3 To the severities of this statute the Irish act added that the old English law of gavelkind should be applied to estates, unless the persons on whom they were 1 The duke has been represented by Tindal (History of England, iii., 523, ed. 1763) as animated by the mischievous bigotry of Rochester, but two of Ormonde's letters discredit this view of his disposition. On December 26, 1703, he expresses his disapproval of the occasional conformity bill (Ormonde MSS., p. 768). In another letter he says: "I have gott the Queen to lett me have a summe not exceeding 1,200 per annum, to be disposed of amongst those Presbyterian ministers that will behave themselves so as to deserve her Majesty's favour and bounty" (Ormonde to Lord Mount Alexander, January 9, 1704-5, ibid., p. 771). If this refers to the Regium Donum, it must be remembered that its withdrawal had been demanded by the Irish convocation, and was one of the first acts of the High Church ministry which followed Godolphin's fall. That the duke was hostile to the Roman catholics is apparent from the satisfaction implied in his letter to Lord Coningsby of February 27, 1703-4, at the fruitlessness of their protests against the act (Ormonde to Coningsby, ibid., p. 719). 1703 IRELAND AND THE TEST ACT. 73 III. settled should conform and take the oaths. The insertion of CHAP this provision redeems the act from being one of mere religious persecution. From the division of estates equally among the children of papists the political result looked for was, that the aggregation of land in the hands of great owners, with an army of dependants and an implacable hatred of constitutional rule, would be prevented. It was an arrangement which for centuries was the law in Kent; and it was made general in France at the revolution as the equitable ideal which it would now require a second revolution to overturn. But when the bill came back from England in 1704 a clause was found to have been added, that no one in Ireland should be capable of any employment or of being in the magistracy in any city who did not qualify by receiving the sacrament in accordance with the provisions of the English test act. This insertion has been imputed to Godolphin. But a recently published document shews that Godolphin was indifferent on the matter1 and his behaviour with regard to occasional conformity is evidence that he was not disposed to incur the risk of political collisions for the sake of the dissenters. In England the lay adviser on ecclesiastical affairs was Nottingham.2 There need scarcely be doubt as to the parentage of the clause. Subordinate though it was both to the English privy council and the English parliament, the Irish parliament enjoyed sufficient initiative to give importance and interest to its deliberations and to attract the talent of the educated class, the protestant episcopalians. Notwithstanding the necessity of an ultimate dependence upon England, of which a minority legislating for a nation could not but be sensible, it was not in human nature that the dominant class should view with abject submissiveness the ruin of their country by English interference. There was, indeed, an "English interest," to some of whom, being Englishmen, such an attitude was natural, while others adopted it as profitable to themselves. This party included the officials, with the lord-lieutenant at their head, the greater number of the bishops, who were for the most part 1 Ormonde MSS., p. 776. "Lord Nottingham lays his hand on all Church preferment," etc. William Graham, Dean of Carlisle, to his brother, James Graham, Windsor, June 30, 1703, Bagot MSS., P. 337. III. CHAP. Englishmen, and some great landlords whose habitual residence was in England. The "Irish interest," which formed the opposition, was for the most part composed of the smaller landowners who, while they recognised that they were regarded by the Celtic race as intruders, yet looked upon themselves as champions of Irish nationality when it came into conflict with English pretensions. They were supported by the very small number of presbyterians in the house, at no time exceeding twelve, whose interests lay in commercial and industrial freedom, and who had suffered directly by English legislation. They also enjoyed the influential alliance of Trinity College. Their leader was William King, who had been translated in 1703 from Derry to the archbishopric of Dublin. In the house of lords the "English interest" was predominant. It was maintained by the spiritual peers, who as a rule outnumbered the laymen owing to the absenteeism of the great landlords. The natural disposition of the upper house, therefore, was to support the ascendancy of the protestant episcopalian body as well against the protestant nonconformists as against the Roman catholics. The spectacle presented by Ireland in 1703 rallied the "Irish interest" in the house of commons in favour of a proposal which, if English commercial jealousy had tolerated its realisation, would have restored more than the prosperity of which the country had been robbed. The house addressed to the queen a " representation" of the grievances of the nation. They recapitulated the disastrous consequences to the protestants of the suppression of the woollen manufacture; they dwelt upon the corruption and absenteeism prevalent among the officials, and they made an alternative demand-either for a restoration "of the full enjoyment of their constitution," which meant the abolition of the control of the English privy council under Poynings's act, or free trade and union with England. CHAPTER IV. THE NETHERLANDS AND THE PENINSULA. IV. AT the close of the campaign in December, 1704, Marl- CHAP. borough, by his occupation of Trèves, had disclosed his intention of an invasion of the Moselle district. It became necessary for the French after their severe losses in men and munitions to redistribute their forces. The imperial army, no longer thrown on the defensive, would be free to take the initiative on the Upper Rhine, and, with Landau as a base, to threaten Alsace. The troops of the maritime powers, with their headquarters at Trèves, were free to co-operate with it; while on the other side, between Trèves and the Netherlands, the communications were open. The defence of Alsace was entrusted to Marshal Marsin. As the Margrave of Baden would be the general opposed to him, and the marshal's instructions were to act on the defensive, comparatively little anxiety was felt at Versailles. Greater importance attached to the army of Lorraine, which had its headquarters at Thionville and was commanded by Marshal Villars. It formed a link, corresponding to the allied army at Trèves, between Marsin on the Upper Rhine and Villeroy and Max Emanuel in the Netherlands. Upon this army, it was anticipated, would fall the brunt of Marlborough's attack. On the duke's arrival at the Hague on April 3/14 for the campaign of 1705, he found himself confronted with innumerable difficulties. The Dutch had relapsed into their former nervousness. Five weeks were spent in wrangling ere he could extort assent to his plans. He reckoned that after effecting a junction with the Margrave of Baden, he would be at the head of nearly 90,000 men. Against these the army of Villars was estimated at 60,000. Yet at the end of May the imperialist CHAP. forces had not arrived at Trèves, and his whole force con IV. sisted of but 30,000 English and Dutch. To parry his anticipated invasion of the heart of France, the French resolved on a diversion. In June Villeroy captured in succession both Huy and Liège, and at once a clamour arose among the Dutch for Marlborough's return to the Meuse. He had no choice but to comply. Scarcely had he set out when the Palatine general, Aubach, whom he had left in command of Trèves, surrendered to the French with the provisions and munitions stored there. His plan of campaign was wrecked. He himself, broken with disappointment and illness, expressed a longing to retire. Villeroy, upon Marlborough's approach, withdrew his army of 70,000 men within the French lines, a formidable barrier, the construction of which had occupied three years. It was in shape an arc, of which Namur was at one, Antwerp at the other extremity. Three rivers, the Great and Little Gheet and the Demer, were connected with elaborate earthworks. It was impossible for Marlborough to allow the enemy to occupy a position which threatened his base. On the night of July 17, having deceived Villeroy by a feint, he forced the lines at the point occupied by the Bavarians, broke their resistance by a cavalry charge headed by himself, and drove the whole French army to retreat upon Louvain. Whether because of Marlborough's weak condition, for he writes on the next day that he could hardly hold his pen, or because the Dutch generals refused to march further,1 the enemy was not pursued. Had the advantage been hotly pressed, wrote Villeroy to Louis XIV., they must have been destroyed. A number of colours, standards, and cannon and 1,200 prisoners, 1 This is an assertion of Coxe which Von Noorden (ii., 167) disputes as unconfirmed by Marlborough's correspondence; but one of his field officers, Major Cranstoun, in a long account he gives of these events, says: "I believe it s agreed that he (Ouwerkerk) had sent to tell the duke that his troops were wearied and could not march much farther ". Cranstoun also supports the duke's decision to halt by saying that, as Ouwerkerk had not joined him, he might have been attacking the whole French army, the distance of the elector and Villeroy being unknown, with only half his own forces (J. Cranstoun to Robert Cunningham, Herenthals, October 1, 1705, Portland MSS., iv., 250). Lord Orkney, who was in the affair, wrote on July 20: "You cannot believe how it (the enterprise) was opposed by the Dutch"; and, speaking of the failure to pursue, which he imputes to the Dutch, he says that it was "not of my lord's (Marlborough's) fault" (ibid., p. 314). |