is story was one of Dick Talbot's
truths, and that it had no more foundation than the calumnies which,
twenty-six years before, he had invented to blacken the fame of
Anne Hyde. To the Roman Catholic courtiers generally he spoke of the
uncertain tenure by which they held offices, honours, and emoluments.
The King might die tomorrow, and might leave them at the mercy of a
hostile government and a hostile rabble. But, if the old faith could
be made dominant in Ireland, if the Protestant interest in that country
could be destroyed, there would still be, in the worst event, an
asylum at hand to which they might retreat, and where they might either
negotiate or defend themselves with advantage. A Popish priest was hired
with the promise of the mitre of Waterford to preach at Saint James's
against the Act of Settlement; and his sermon, though heard with deep
disgust by the English part of the auditory, was not without its effect.
The struggle which patriotism had for a time maintained against bigotry
in the royal mind was at an end. "There is work to be done in Ireland,"
said James, "which no Englishman will do." [203]

All obstacles were at length removed; and in February 1687, Tyrconnel
began to rule his native country with the power and appointments of Lord
Lieutenant, but with the humbler title of Lord Deputy.

His arrival spread dismay through the whole English population.
Clarendon was accompanied, or speedily followed, across St. George's
Channel, by a large proportion of the most respectable inhabitants of
Dublin, gentlemen, tradesmen, and artificers. It was said that
fifteen hundred families emigrated in a few days. The panic was not
unreasonable. The work of putting the colonists down under the feet
of the natives went rapidly on. In a short time almost every Privy
Councillor, Judge, Sheriff, Mayor, Alderman, and Justice of the Peace
was a Celt and a Roman Catholic. It seemed that things would soon
be ripe for a general election, and that a House of Commons bent on
abrogating the Act of Settlement would easily be assembled. [204]
Those who had lately been the lords of the island now cried out, in
the bitterness of their souls, that they had become a prey and a
laughingstock to their own serfs and menials; that houses were burnt and
cattle stolen with impunity; that the new soldiers roamed the country,
pillaging, insulting, ravishing, maiming, tossing one Protestant in a
blanket, tying up another by the hair and sco