pread rebellion and all
the consequent horrors of civil war, there can be no doubt. The rebels
of Ulster at one time tried to identify their cause with that of
Charles I by producing a forged commission from the king--which
annoyed the Royalists and made the Parliamentary party all the more
bitter. Charles certainly did his utmost to bring about a peace--no
doubt being anxious to obtain the assistance of his Irish subjects
in his Scotch and English wars. But his efforts were thwarted by the
Papal Nuncio, whose instructions from Rome were that the Holy See
could never by any positive Act approve of the civil allegiance of
Catholic subjects to an heretical prince; and thus the Royalist cause
became as completely lost in Ireland as it was in England. Before the
peace was finally concluded, Charles was a prisoner in the hands of
his enemies.

Then came the terrible episode of the Cromwellian war, in which
Romanist and Royalist alike went down before the Puritan force. Still,
though he would be a bold man who could attempt to excuse--much less
to justify--the barbarities that took place, it may be doubted whether
all the Cromwellian outrages put together equalled a single one of
those which the Imperial troops had committed during the war which
had been raging for thirty years in Germany--such for instance as the
sacking of Magdeburg. It is estimated, however, that about 600,000
people (of whom 500,000 were of the Irish race and 100,000 of the
English) perished by the sword, pestilence or famine in the fearful
years between 1641 and 1652--in other words, about a third part of
the population was wiped out. And the war was followed by a wholesale
confiscation--having fought for the king being considered as much an
act of treason as having rebelled against him. The confiscated lands
were allotted to soldiers, to persons who had supplied money to the
Parliamentary forces, and to other supporters of the new Government.
It is but just, however, to add that 700,000 acres of profitable land
in Connaught were allotted to dispossessed Romanists, and that they
were allowed to occupy 100,000 acres in other parts of the country; a
striking contrast to the lot of the unhappy Waldenses who were at that
time being driven from their homes and slaughtered without mercy for
no crime but heresy; or to the treatment a few years later by Louis
XIV of his Huguenot subjects whose lands were confiscated without
compensation and who were only given