of these barbarous actions antecedently improbable, and the historian may be content to record his belief that if any truthful narrative of those days could be recovered, it would be found to support neither the views of those who argue that the tales of unnatural cruelty are entirely to be rejected, nor of those who would admit every one of them as satisfactorily proved.' Terrible as these scenes were, the victims were for the most part those who were driven naked through the cold November nights amidst a population which refused to them a scanty covering or a morsel of food in their hour of trial. To the Irish it seemed mercy enough when no actual blow was struck against the flying rout. Men hardly beyond middle age could remember the days when Mountjoy had harried Ulster, and when the sunken eye and the pallid cheek of those who had been dearest to them had told too surely of the pitiless might of the Englishman.

Of the number of the persons murdered at the beginning of the outbreak it is impossible to speak with even approximate certainty. Clarendon speaks of 40,000, and wilder estipersons were mates still give 20c,000 or even 300,000. Even the murdered? smallest number is ridiculously impossible. The

How many

estimated numbers of the Scots in Ulster were 100,000, and of the English only 20,000. For the time the Scots were spared. In Fermanagh, where the victims fared most badly, a Puritan officer boasted not long afterwards that he had rescued 6,000. Thousands of robbed and plundered fugitives escaped with their lives to find shelter in Dublin. On the whole, it would be safe to conjecture that the number of those slain in cold blood at the beginning of the rebellion could hardly have much

I

' Mr. Gilbert, in the Eighth Report of the Hist. MSS. Commission, has given an account of the celebrated Depositions. They will, however, soon be accessible in print, as they are being edited by Miss Mary Hickson. am sorry that I have been unable to procure a sight of them before sending these pages to the press. Mr. Sanford (Studies, 429), speaking of the alleged appearance of ghosts, says :-"Because the terrified witnesses deposed to having seen this, we are therefore," he is writing ironically, "to believe that no massacres took place; as if the very fact of their imaginations being wrought up to fancying such sights were not the strongest proof that some horrible deed had been perpetrated in their presence."

Nov 11. Reception at Westminster of the news

from

Ireland.

exceeded four or five thousand,' whilst about twice that number may have perished from ill-treatment. Before long the tale of woe from Ireland would resound through England, in a wildly exaggerated form. The letters read at Westminster on November 11 showed that even the full extent of the real calamity was as yet unknown in Dublin; but they told of Englishmen being spoiled and slain, and they declared that, if substantial relief were not soon afforded, Ireland would be lost and all its Protestant population would be destroyed. This was all that needed to be told in English ears. The Remonstrance was flung aside for a time, and the energy of both Houses was directed to the suppression of the Irish Rebellion. The younger Vane moved that the House should go into committee to consider a present supply for Ireland. Henry Marten and his irreconcilable friends declared against him, but this timė Vane's Episcopalian opponents ranged themselves by his side, and he carried his motion by 98 to 68. As soon as the committee had been formed, Strode called out that the debate should be postponed till the Remonstrance had been circulated in the country.3 The House wanted to hear about Ireland, and not about the Remonstrance. It voted that 10,000 foot and 2,000 horse should be sent from England, and that the Scots should be asked to furnish 10,000 men, instead of the 1,000 which had been originally proposed. To all this the Lords.

1 Warner (297) gives 4,028 as the number of all those stated, on every evidence, to have been murdered, and about twice as many to have perished in other ways. This was upon evidence collected within two years, and probably includes later murders. Miss Hickson tells me that she estimates from the depositions the whole number slain and allowed to die of starvation in the first two or three years as 20,000 or 25,000. The lesser estimate would not be far above Warner's statement, which refers to a shorter period of time, and gives 12,000 in all. Compare Mr. Lecky's investigations (Hist. of Engl. ii. 145).

2 Strangways was one of his tellers.

Mr. Strode, says D'Ewes, 'moved against the order of this Committee that,' &c. In order to make this more dramatic, Mr. Forster turned this into "Sir, I move against the order of the Committee that," &c. Course D'Ewes meant that Strode was out of order.

Of

gave their assent, as well as to so much of the Instructions to the Committee in Scotland as referred to the military arrangements. But they resolved to postpone to a more postpone the convenient season the consideration of the Addidebate on the Additional tional Instruction, which was intended to limit the

The Lords

Instruction. King's constitutional power of appointing ministers without the consent of Parliament. It seemed as if Pym would fail in securing the support of either House for the constitutional change which he had proposed.

Nov. 12. Proposed Scottish force for Ireland.

The next day the tide was running in the same direction. The Commons had vcted that 2,000 English troops should be sent at once, under Sir Simon Harcourt. They were then asked to request that the Scots should cross the sea at the same time. In this way the balance of force would be altered in favour of Puritanism. The Episcopalians took alarm, and proposed to limit the demand to 1,000. They carried their point by the large majority of 112 to 77.2

The City ready to lend.

Protections.

Reliance on Scottish assistance was plainly not popular even in the House of Commons. The Common Council of the City was ready to support Pym. It declared its readiness to lend the sum which was needed for the Irish expedition. It asked in return for relief from certain grievances. Members of Parliament, especially the members of the House of Lords, had been in the habit of granting protections to their servants, to shield them from their creditors. What had been but a temporary inconvenience to a City tradesman, when the longest" session seldom exceeded six months, became a formidable burden in times when no one could tell through how many years a single session might be prolonged. On this matter the Commons were not likely to stand in the way of justice, and they pushed forward a Bill which was intended to remedy the

1. L. J. iv. 435. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 132 b. 2 The me ning of the division is evident from the names of the tellersHopton and Strangways for the majority, Erle and Marten for the minority.

The City declares

against the Catholic Lords and

evil. Having first set forth their own complaints, the citizens asked that the persons of the Catholic Lords might be secured, and that the bishops, who were the main obstacles to the passage of good laws in the Upper the bishops. House, might be deprived of their votes. If this declaration expressed the real sense of the City, all the efforts of Charles's partisans to win London to their side would be made in vain.

Nov. 13.

mons follow

The declaration of the City was the turning-point in the struggle. It came just after the impeached bishops had put in their answer in the House of Lords. It may be that The Com- the discovery that the City supported Pym's views Pym's lead. influenced some votes in the Commons. At all events, on the 13th they not only voted that the bishops' answer was frivolous, but they reconsidered their determination to restrict the immediate supply of Scottish troops to 1,000. They now resolved to ask for as many as 5,000, though 3,000 had been thought too much on the day before. Before night this proposal was agreed to by the Lords.1

In these last conflicts Hampden had been once more by the side of Pym. He had left Fiennes behind him at Edinburgh, and had hastened back to throw himself heart and soul into the Parliamentary struggle. With him there was no looking back. What he had seen in Scotland seems to have confirmed him in the belief that Charles could not be trusted.

Hampden at Westminster.

Nov. 16. The Re

As soon as the immediate wants of Ireland had been provided for, the Remonstrance was once more taken up. On the 15th and 16th it finally passed through committee.2 As might have been expected, the only real struggle was over the ecclesiastical clauses. One of these, as originally drawn, complained of the errors and superstitions to be found in the Prayer Book. The Episcopalians

monstrance

through

committee.

'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. 142 b.

2 These were the third and fourth sittings. Mr. Forster intercalates (The Grand Remonstrance, 205) a fierce and long debate on the 12th which never existed except in his own imagination. The Commons were engaged on that day in discussing the question of sending troops to Ireland.

mustered in such strength that their opponents were fain to submit to the excision of these words. They then proposed an amendment justifying the use of the Prayer Book 'till the laws had otherwise provided.' This alteration, however, they failed to carry, though they succeeded in preventing the insertion of an announcement that the Commons intended to dispose of the lands of the bishops and deans. Equally balanced as the parties appeared to be, the next effort of the Episcopalians was signally defeated. A statement that the bishops had brought idolatry and Popery into the Church was opposed by Dering, but was retained by the large majority of 124 to 99. The probable explanation is, that some members were in favour of the retention of the Prayer Book, who were not unwilling to pass a bitter condemnation on the past proceedings of the bishops. 1

Nov. 15. The supposed Popish Plot.

During the last two days the attention of the House had not been entirely absorbed by the Remonstrance. The horrors of the Irish Rebellion had revived the belief in a great Popish Plot for the extinction of Protestantism in the three kingdoms. There was doubtless a singular opportuneness in the circulation of the rumours which sprang up just at the time when the fate of the Remonstrance was at stake, and it is quite possible that Pym and Hampden did not at this moment care to scrutinise so closely the tales which reached their ears as they might under other circumstances have done. But it must not be forgotten that a real plot existed; and with Pym's knowledge of much-we cannot tell of how much-of the Queen's subtlest intrigues, he could hardly venture to disregard any information, however trivial it might seem.

On the 15th the Speaker informed the House that two priests had been taken. The House ordered that they should be proceeded against according to law. In the meanwhile

1 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 153. All through his notes of this debate, D'Ewes speaks of his opponents as the party of Episcopacy, or the Episcopalian party. The words are in cypher, and have not been noticed by Mr. Forster. Mr. Sanford (Studies, 137) mentions them, but does not appear to have seized their importance.