Studies in Irish History, 1603-1649

Studies in Irish History, 1603-1649 - Being a Course of Lectures Delivered before the Irish Literary Society of London. 2d Series.

These words were written in an appeal for justice, or even the formality of a trial, by one who was betrayed by the English whom he had served. Sir Donnell OCahan had left his own people to seek an English alliance, and was rewarded by an imprisonment of nineteen years, without ever being brought up for trial. He was goaded into a just indignation by rumours that reached him in the early days of his imprisonment in Dublin, of Lady OCahans destitution and insanity, but after a couple of years he was moved to the Tower of London, where he, and other noblemen who were confined because men hungered after their lands, languished away till death gave them release. It will not surprise most of our readers to know that his letters were intercepted and carefully 8studied with a view to finding something treasonable in them. Truly Irelands share in the privileges of Magna Carta has been a small one. The opening of James Is reign in Ireland was auspicious enough. The battle of Kinsale was an effort of an United Ireland, aided by Spanish troops, to meet and expel the English in the battle-field: it failed, and with it came to an end the hopes of the great Irish lords to do anything by open warfare. James found Ireland decimated by war and famine: some parts like the Ards in the County Down had been literally cleared of their inhabitants.[1] The chiefs were willing enough to submit, if submission meant that they were to become great Palatine lords, with no interference from the Crown in their relations with their vassals, or in the exercise of their religion. The once turbulent Anglo-Irish lords had nearly all conformed to the Protestant religion, and become loyal. The people, with the gaunt figures of famine and desolation that they remembered so well, would have been glad to have peace, if not at any price, at any rate at any price that might allow them to remain in their own land and worship as their fathers had done. By his descent James had claims upon the loyalty of the Irish that could not have been urged for 9the Tudor line. And it looked at first as if a new era of prosperity was dawning upon Ireland. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 57289
Author: Cox, S. A.
Release Date: Jun 8, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: O'Brien, R. Barry (Richard Barry), 1847-1918