Divide and Conquer? - The Fall of the Stuarts; and Western Europe 1678-1697

Divide and conquer is a well-known strategy. The more I read the more I realise that the true 'big picture' story of the 1688 Revolution has, over the past century or so, been divided and diminished, its events detached from one another and told as broken pieces which took place solely within the various parts of our islands. The cords have been broken. Even today's 'unionists' don't think in a truly joined-up way, most are content to have stories which are limited to their own 'home nation'. But, leaving aside the politics of competing nationalisms, these stories don't make sense separately, they belong together.

To escape the present you have to read from the past. This 1889 book - The Fall of the Stuarts; and Western Europe 1678-1697 (online here) was written by Rev Edward 'Badger' Hale, the assistant master of Eton College. International in scope, easy to read, a glimpse of how the pieces of the jigsaw once fitted together to create a far bigger story - the end of 'Stuart' tyranny of Charles II and James II, and the confounding of the 'superpower' plan of Louis XIV.

Since this book was published in 1889 there's been a lot of political division, upheaval and change on these islands, never mind the two world wars. Our context is different now.

But in present-day England, the telling of this story is remarkably free of the overtly tribal obsessions in Ireland - of course there's a religious dimension to it, but it's nothing like how it's told on our side of the water.  I'm just back from Somerset where I saw afresh how the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion is told there. More to follow.

Hugh Williamson, 'The Plea of the Colonies' 1775

"... The second position which your Lordship has endeavoured to establish is, that the Americans do not wish for peace, they would not be satisfied with relief from particular grievances; they aim at independence, and would throw off their subjection to the crown of Great Britain. As this very charge is circulated through every part of the kingdom by those who would justify the oppressor by casting a darker shade on the oppressed, I have taken much pains to discover the evidence on which it is founded; but after all my researches I cannot find any better reason for supposing that the Americans desire to be independent, than their own uniform declarations that they do not desire it..."

1881 Language Map of Great Britain and Ireland

This 1881 map is pretty consistent with the orthodox understanding of the language question on the 1911 Census of Ireland and the "scoring out" of thousands in demographically predominantly Ulster-Scots regions who had self-completed their census forms wrongly. Some activist types have (bizarrely) claimed this was not the correcting of errors, but some kind of widespread state suppression. The narrowing of the once-understood diverse possibilities of what the term 'Irish' can mean has corroded our society. There are various previous posts here about it - here's one example.

 

"New Lisburne" - Pelham, Massachussetts, and the Scotch-Irish

In Western Massachusetts, not far from Colrain and Palmer is the town of Pelham. It was originally founded as "New Lisburne" by Ulster-Scots settlers who had landed in Boston in 1718, then moved inland to Worcester, and then further still. As the opening lines of History of Pelham, Mass, from 1738 to 1898 (online here) says:

The people who settled in Pelham in 1738-9 were of Scotch origin, as many of the sturdy names would indicate if it was not definitely known that they were such. They came to this country from Ireland and were commonly called Scotch-Irish...

The story shows the classic pattern - settlement in Ulster, persecution by the state, the 1718 migration, the arrival in New England. The History of Pelham, Mass includes lists of the names of the 41 'proprietors' who were the founders of the settlement - such as McFarland, Gray, Young, Alexander - and maps of the land grants they individually received.

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PRESBYTERIANS: The ancient West Burying Ground has some gravestones which predate the American Revolution; it even as a Betsy Gray who died in 1793.

Of course these people were Presbyterian – "They adhered to the creed, the doctrines and the government, and discipline of the Scotch Presbyterian church to the letter, and brought with them all the church customs and practices that were prevalent in Scotland, and among the Scotch who had made their homes in the North of Ireland for many years previous to coming to Massachusetts." The first minister of the congregation was a Rev Robert Abercrombie:

he preached among Presbyterians at Boston, Worcester, and other places, going about on horseback and in this work became acquainted with Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who went from Worcester to Pelham, before they had become fully established in their new settlement.

In 1745 Abercrombie was one of the founders of the first "Boston Presbytery", along with Rev. Messrs. John Moorhead of Boston, David McGregor of Londonderry, N. H., James McKeon, Alexander Conkey and James Hughes. Jonathan Edwards was present in the area at the time too.

The settlement name was changed to Pelham in 1742, for Lord Pelham.

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DECLARATION: Like in Palmer, and Colrain, Pelham had a committee which (reputedly*) published its own Declaration. It was a compilation of expressions from earlier sources such as William III and Mary II's 1689 Bill of Rights:

I — A.B. Truly and Sincerely acknowledge profess certify and declare that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is and of Right ought to be a free Sovereign and Independent state and I do Swear that I will Bear true faith and allegiance to the said Commonwealth — And that I will defend the same against Traitorous Conspiracies and all hostile attempts whatsoever and that I do Renounce and abjure all allegiance, subjection and obedience to the King, Queen or government of Great Britain (as the case may be) and every other foreign Power whatsover, and that no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction, Superiority, Preeminence, Authority, Dispensing or other Powers in any Matter Civil, Ecclesiastical, or Spiritual, within this Commonwealth except the authority which is or may be rested by their Constituents in Congress of the United States, and I do further testify and declare that no man or body of men hath or can have any right to absolve or discharge me from the Obligations of this oath Declaration or Affirmation,— and that I do make this acknowledgement, Profession, testimony, Declaration, Denial, renunciation and obligation heartily and truly according to the common meaning and acceptation of the foregoing words without equivocation, mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever. So help me God.

John Rankin,

John Haskins,

Andrew Abercrombie

Alexander Berry

Nath'l Sampson

* The History of Pelham on page 345 says that this Declaration was "evidently drawn up and subscribed toby the five men whose names appear, just before the war broke out". However, it looks almost identical to the 1780 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (online here), so perhaps it dates from that era.

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REVOLUTION: At the Battle of Lexington and Concord of 19 April 1775. Pelham sent a militia of 20 men led by a Colonel David Cowden, with surnames like Gray, Johnson, Rice, Barnes, Alexander, Ferguson, Hunter, McKee, Patterson and Rankin. By August of that year, the Pelham military had almost doubled, adding surnames like McCulloch, Gilmore, Hamilton and McCartney. Joshua Conkey was the drummer, and Silas Conkey was the fifer.

One of the Pelham men who served in the Revolutionary War was Daniel Shays, he was born in Massachusetts to parents believed to have emigrated from County Kerry. The war ended in September 1783 and Shays went back to farming in Pelham. However, in 1786-7 Shays led a rebellion against the government of the state of Massachusetts over the issue of post-war taxation and revenue raising.

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The history of "New Lisburne" / Pelham is yet another example of how much there is still yet to uncover in rural Massachusetts, and like the research in recent years in New England generally, demonstrates that the near fixation on the southern Appalachian story totally misses the scale and scope of Ulster-Scots influence in America. And of a community who believed that liberty was more important than loyalty. 

 

 

Lexington 1775 and the Glorious Revolution 1688 - a contemporary newspaper report from Ireland

In its 26-28 June 1775 edition the Hibernian Journal or Chronicle of Liberty newspaper printed a long article by an author named as Tullus in support of the historic action that had been taken at Lexington two months before on 19 April, by the colonists in America (such as David Spear and his 'Minutemen' in my previous post) and opposing "the despotic measures of the administration".  It was later reprinted in a number of newspapers in Philadelphia and Virginia:

“... If the Americans who lately fought in their own defence, in the defence of their chartered liberties, in defence of their undoubted properties, in defence of their wives and their little ones, nay more, in defence of the constitutions; if those men were rebels, then every man who joined in the Glorious Revolution, every man who drew his sword in this kingdom to oppose an arbitrary Stuart, was an arrant rebel ..."

The Scotch-Irish in Palmer, Massachusetts - and the "Palmer Declaration of Independence, 17 June 1776" / "Born in the north of Airland"

The town of Palmer, Massachusetts is on the route from Boston through Worcester to Springfield, and 60 miles south of Colrain. Its story was published in 1889, entitled History of the Town of Palmer, Massachusetts, early known as The Elbow Tract, by Josiah Howard Temple and is online here.

The settlement of 'Elbow Tract' was founded in 1715 by a John King who had headed west from Boston; when the Ulster-Scots started to arrive in Boston in large numbers in 1718, some moved to 'The Elbows'.

"... Probably the first of these came here in 1720; and others followed at different dates, scattering along till 1733. A part of the Worcester colony, joined by a fresh arrival of their countrymen, settled at Coleraine in 1736; and a company of thirty-four, partly recent emigrants, purchased of Col. John Stoddard, Jan. 1, 1739-40, a township to the east of Amherst, being the northerly section of the Equivalent Lands. To this, the first comers gave the name Lisbon, or New Lisburne - changed to Pelham, on the incorporation of the town Jan. 15, 1742 ..."

Others from Ulster later arrived at Elbow Tract from their Londonderry, New Hampshire settlement, and many of the surnames can be found in the famous Shute Petition. The 'List of Early Settlers' includes many specifically described as being from the north of Ireland - online here.

"... The line marked by the passage of the Chicopee river through the town of 'Palmer, early bestowed upon that tract the name of "The Elbows." On this tract, as early as 1727, settlements were made by a considerable colony of emigrants from the North of Ireland, on grants from the proprietors of Lambstown, now Hardwick, and it is stated that John King made a settlement some ten years earlier.

The settlers were the descendants of a colony of Protestants which migrated from Argyleshire, in Scotland, and settled in the North of Ireland about 1612. They emigrated to this country in 1718, and were the first Presbyterians in the country..."

(from 'History of Western Massachusetts', Vol II, Part III, by JG Holland, 1855)

 

Elbow Tract was renamed as Palmer on 30 January 1752, after a recently deceased Scottish friend of John King's. A Presbyterian congregation and meeting house was founded and the first minister was a Rev John Harvey:

"... it is commonly understood that he was a Scotchman, born in the north of Ireland, and a graduate of the University. Before coming to the Elbows he was employed as a schoolmaster at Londonderry, N. H." .

"... On the 5th day of June, Anno Dom. 1734 the Rev. Mr. John Harvey was ordained the first minister of the church of the Elbow settlement. The ordination was performed by the delegates of the Reverend Presbytery of Londonderry, upon a scaffold, standing on the plain, on the East side of the meadow called Cedar Swamp Meadow, within Mr. Harvey's lot. The Rev Mr. Thomson of Londonderry preached the sermon, and the Rev. Mr. Moorhead gave the charge..."

(from 'History of Western Massachusetts', Vol II, Part III, by JG Holland, 1855) 

 

This Rev John Moorhead was a Newtownards man, and was the minister of the "Church of the Presbyterian Strangers" in Boston. Harvey was succeeded by a Rev Robert Burns, who was "from the North of Ireland, though of Scotch parentage".

Fast forward a couple of generations and the people of Palmer were of course swept up into the momentum of the American Revolution.

One of Palmer's prominent citizens, and an elder of the Presbyterian church, David Spear (1725-1800), gathered a company of 44 'minute men' to march to Lexington on 19 April 1775. The muster roll of those men's names is online here. [His father, David Spear senior (1676-1760), is believed to have been born in Ulster, possibly Coleraine. He and his wife Jane had five sons – David junior, John, William, Calvin and Luther).

(illustration above: Minutemen: Heroes of 1776 / Heroes of 76, Marching to the Fight - Currier & Ives lithograph, 1876)

A few weeks later David Spear junior was appointed as Palmer's representative at the General Assembly of Massachusetts; and on 13 June 1776 a town residents public meeting was called for 17 June. At that meeting, moderated by Robert Ferrell, the people approved the following Declaration:

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"At a very full meeting of ye Inhabitants of Palmer, legally met at ye publick Meeting-house, on Monday, the 17th day of June, 1776 , at one of the clock, ye meeting being opened, Robert Ferrell was chosen moderator: and then proceeded & Voted ye following instructions to the Representative of this Town, now at the General Assembly of this Colony, as ye sentiments of this Town:

That, Whereas, the Court of Great Britain hath by sundry acts of Parliament, assumed the power of Legislation for ye Colonies in all Cases whatsoever, without the Consent of the Inhabitants; - Have likewise, exerted ye assumed power in Raising a Revenue in ye Colonies without their Consent: we cannot justly call that our own, which others may when they please take from us against our wills: - Hath likewise, appointed a New set of officers to superintend these Revenues, wholly unknown in the Charter, and by their commissions, invested with powers altogether unconstitutional, and destructive to ye security which we have a Right to enjoy. Fleets and armies hath been Introduced to support these unconstitutional officers in collecting these unconstitutional Revenues: - Have also altered the Charter of this Colony, and thereby overthrown the Constitution, Together with many other grievous acts of Parliament too grievous to be borne: -The peaceable Inhabitants being alarmed at such repeated inroads on ye Constitution & gigantick strides to despotick power over ye Colonies, Petitioned the King for Redress of grievances separately: -finding that to fail, Petitioned joyntly - begging as children to a Father to be heard and Relieved, But all to no purpose, the Petitions being treated with ye utmost contempt.

The united Colonies finding that No Redress could be had from Great Britain, unitedly agreed to an opposition In the most Peaceable way they could contrive, being willing to try every peaceable measure yt possibly could be invented, rather than Brake with Great Britain.

Great Britain being bent on her favorite scheme of Enslaving ye Colonies, declared them Rebbels & Treated them as such. The Colonies being driven to a state of Dispare from the least Reliefe from them, were obliged by ye laws of self-preservation, to take up arms in their own Defence, and meant to use them only as such. But the dispute has arose to so great a height that it is Impossible for the Colonies ever to be Joyned with Great Britain again, with the least Security & Safety to themselves or posterity.

We, therefore, the Inhabitants of this Town, do believe it absolutely Necessary for the safety of the United Colonies, to be Independent from Great Britain, & Declare themselves Intirely a Separate State, as we can se no alternative but Inevitable ruin, or Independence. - But as there is a General Congress of the United Colonies, composed of Honourable, wise and good men, who sit at the Head of affairs, consulting measures which will be most for the Safety and Prosperity of the whole; & have the means of Intelligence and Information in their hands, we submit the whole affair to their wise Consideration & Determination: - And if they shall unite in a separation from Great Britain, we do unanimously determine & declare we will Support them with our Lives and Fortunes!

We do Direct the Representative of this Town to lay these votes before the Honourable General Assembly of this Colony, to Enable them to communicate our Sentiments to the Honourable Continental Congress.

Robert Ferrell, Moderator

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• This predates the eventual 4th July Declaration of Independence by 17 days.

• A catalogue of births, deaths and marriages for Palmer, entitled Vital Records of Palmer, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, was published in Boston by the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 1905. Its Publications Committee included renowned historian of the Scotch-Irish in America, Charles Knowles Bolton (1867–1950) - online here.

• The Spears and other early families were buried in Palmer Center Cemetery, which can be searched on FindAGrave.com here.

• There is a series of gravestone 'Tablets and Epitaphs' at the back of the book, which include references such as "Born in ye county of Antrim, in Airland", "Born in the north of Airland", "Formerly of Londonderry", "Born in ye county of Derry, Ireland" - online here.

2050 - Winston Marshall in conversation with R.R. Reno of 'First Things'.

"[Germany] won't even exist as a coherent country in the next generation ... and I think the same thing is true of Great Britain. The same trajectory of demographic change, low fertility, a general attack on any attempt to reconsolidate the country around some sort of shared mythos ... by the time you get to 2050 the country has effectively disintegrated. It may continue to exist as a legal entity ... Saint Augustine identified that the thing that makes a mass into a people are shared loves ... I would say if I'm Great Britain, you want to blow on the embers of that love, make it stronger, make it more than just a bureaucratic operation... "

20 May 1775 - The Mecklenburg Declaration and the Ulster-Scots / Scotch-Irish

(this is a recap / summary of various posts which have appeared here over the years)
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250 years ago, on 20 May 1775, a local committee of overwhelmingly Ulster-Scots descent, met in Charlotte, North Carolina, to compose their ‘Mecklenburg Declaration’.

They had founded the county and its main town in 1762, and in doing so they had expressed their loyalty to the King by naming each after his bride, Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg. However less than a decade later on 16 May 1771, the King’s troops opened fire on thousands of them at the Battle of Alamance in Orange County.

Some of those who had been at Alamance moved westwards to establish a new settlement, independent from the Crown, within Cherokee country and with Cherokee co-operation. 

Some of those who stayed, such as Rev David Caldwell, were influential in writing the ‘Mecklenburg Declaration’. Caldwell cited their ancestral defiance of Derry and Enniskillen in 1689 - “They our forefathers, or many of them, sacrificed at Londonderry and Enniskillen their lives, that they might hand down to us the fair inheritance of liberty”

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Of the 27 who gathered at Charlotte, nine were elders in local Presbyterian churches. Their Declaration asserted “the inherent and inalienable rights of man”, and that “we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people”.

Captain James Jack (whose father Patrick Jack was from Ireland, and whose grandfather was Rev William Jack from Donegal - one of the thousands of ministers across our islands who had been persecuted by King Charles II in the 1660s) took copies of the Mecklenburg Declaration on horseback as fast as possible to Philadelphia.

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Two months later, the Presbyterian Synod for all of the 13 British Colonies in America issued a Pastoral Letter to all of its member congregations, advising them all to:

"... let every opportunity be taken to express your attachment and respect to our Sovereign King George, and to the (1688) Revolution principles by which his august family was seated on the British throne ..."

however, that

"... Hostilities, long feared, have now taken place; the sword has been drawn, in one Province, and the whole Continent, with hardly any exception, seem determined to defend their rights by force of arms ... If, at the same time, the British Ministry shall continue to enforce their claims by violence, a lasting and bloody contest must be expected ..."

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In later years, some in Washington DC challenged the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration, especially Thomas Jefferson, but its date of 20 May 1775 was later incorporated into the design of the official flag of North Carolina.

David Starkey: Britain Is No Longer a Democracy | Peter McCormack Show

“... the American revolution isn’t like the French Revolution … the American Revolution is really a continuation of the great struggles in England at the end of the 17th century, more particularly of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, and what the Americans are doing is recreating that idea of self-government... ” - (go to 26 minutes for this extract)

 

"Fighting for the Flag"? A new flag for Northern Ireland

This week has marked the 80th anniversary of 'VE Day' when the European dimension of World War II ended. So, the Union Flag has been all over the media coverage, but not as an assertion of nationality but rather a celebration of liberation. Flags, like all symbols, in themselves have no meaning – it is how we respond to them gives them meaning.

What of Northern Ireland? This hoary old chestnut resurfaces ever now and again. To be fair, the discussion earlier this week on BBC Radio Ulster's The Nolan Show (6 May, on iPlayer here) was mostly pretty sensible, especially at 43:40 when Dr Dominic Bryan chipped in, and cited the "hexagonal thing" that I designed just over 20 years ago as the corporate identity for the Northern Ireland Executive and its Departments.

I agree with him - given its 'sharedness', and distinctiveness, the Red Hand of Ulster has most potential as a core emblem. As with modern commercial branding, a family of designs in multiple styles might be worth thinking about, with a Red Hand as a centrepiece. It could be adaptable to suit various contexts and settings – maybe like the legendary British Airways 'ethnic liveries' tailfins. Like everything, it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it. A 'high five' with open, relaxed, digits is not the same as a defensive rigid 'stop' or a clenched fist.

One of the listeners - Brian from Enniskillen - who phoned in made an important, essential, point at 58:40. World War II was a fight for freedom, not a fight for a flag. Nobody 'fights for a flag' as a cosmetic combination of shapes and colours. 

In my various travels around England, the flags of the 'Black Country', of Dorset, of Devon, of Cornwall, these are all more prominent in those counties and regions than the national Union Flag is. There is pride in the local. 

Thomas Jefferson and the Glorious Revolution

Thomas Jefferson, regarded as the most important author of the Declaration of Independence, studied law at William & Mary College, in Williamsburg, Virginia. So it's not a surprise that Jefferson would cite William and Mary's Glorious Revolution of 1688/89.

Here's an example, explaining how the monarchy was subject to Parliament:

"Since the establishment, however, of the British constitution, at the Glorious Revolution, on its free and antient principles, neither his majesty, nor his ancestors, have exercised such a power of dissolution in the island of Great Britain; and when his majesty was petitioned, by the united voice of his people there, to dissolve the present parliament, who had become obnoxious to them, his ministers were heard to declare, in open parliament, that his majesty possessed no such power by the constitution..." 

- from Thomas Jefferson's Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)

Within the college collections are these documents from 1688 & 1689, and has both portraits and statues of William and Mary.

From Thomas Jefferson's personal library - 'An Historical Essay on the English Constitution' by Obadiah Hulme (London, 1771)

There were some books that Jefferson had multiple copies of in his personal library; these were books by what he called the "True Whigs". 

One was Obadiah Hulme's 1771 Historical Essay on the English Constitution in (available on Archive.org here). Hulme is an obscure figure, very little is known about him apart from that he also wrote A Plan of Reconciliation Between Great Britain and Her Colonies. It traces the origins of liberty in England to long before Magna Carta, and has some very precise points to make about the Glorious Revolution.

Hulme's "hot take" is that the King wasn't the problem - the Parliament was. Here's a series of extracts on the theme –

1) CONTEXT & KNOWLEDGE OF THE 1689 BILL OF RIGHTS

"... James the Second, inherited all the diabolical spirit of his whole house; was a person that no experience could teach wisdom, laws make honest, nor oaths bind; and therefore the whole nation united, as one man, to exclude him, and his detested race, from the crown of these realms for ever.

We are now come to that epocha, of the English history, commonly called the REVOLUTION; in which the English people were made to believe, that their laws, liberty, and religion were going to be established upon the most constitutional, firm, and stable foundation, under the immortal King William the third, of glorious memory.

Before the parliament, or rather the convention, tendered the crown to William, they made a declaration*, containing, thirteen articles, of some of the rights and liberties of the people, which had been violated in the three late reigns. In the thirteenth of which they declare, That for the redress of grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently…"

(* Even though Hulme uses the term 'declaration' here, the document presented at the coronation wasn't William's 1688 Declaration but rather the 1689 Bill of Rights.)

2) PARLIAMENT DECEIVES THE REVOLUTION

"… But it appears very evident that, upon this critical occasion, the convention did not do their duty to the people and meant to usurp a power, in the legislative authority, to determine how often the people should exercise their elective rights…

William the third favoured us with this Dutch amendment. But from his time the House of Commons began to act as principals, and to forget their relation to their constituents, as agents, and deputies, from a state formed upon a delegated power; and disposed of the elective rights of the people, as they found it convenient for themselves ..." 

3) WHEN DID IT ALL GO WRONG?

"... I shall therefore not hesitate to date the decline of our constitution, from the REVOLUTION, because the principles of the rebel-parliament of restraining the exercise of the elective power of the people, by acts of parliament, were adopted, into the constitution, at that very critical period of our history.

Hitherto, it had only the prerogative of the crown to struggle with (saving the single instance of the rebel-parliament above mentioned), but at the revolution, which brought William the third to the crown of England, he, and his parliament, began the practice of restraining, the elective power of the people, by the legislative authority..."

4) WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE?

"... Had King William, at the revolution, intended to have established an independent house of commons, he would have restored the constitution to its first principles; and established annual parliaments; and a new house of commons every year. This would have been an infallible remedy, against all corruption; because no corruption can stick upon a body of men, that is continually changing.

As standing water soon stinks, and a running stream throws out all impurities, so a standing house of commons will ever be a standing pool of corruption..."

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Thomas Jefferson's inspiration for his own Revolution is right there in black and white.

- see The Lamp of Experience; Whig History and the Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution by Trevor Colbourn, chapter entitled 'Thomas Jefferson and the Rights of Expatriated Men'.

"The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?" - a perspective on Viscount Castlereagh of Mount Stewart, by Lord Byron (written between 1819-1824)

 

XI

Think'st thou, could he—the blind Old Man—arise

       Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more

The blood of monarchs with his prophecies

       Or be alive again—again all hoar

With time and trials, and those helpless eyes,

       And heartless daughters—worn—and pale—and poor;

Would he adore a sultan? he obey

The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?

XII

Cold-blooded, smooth-fac'd, placid miscreant!

       Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore,

And thus for wider carnage taught to pant,

       Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore,

The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,

       With just enough of talent, and no more,

To lengthen fetters by another fix'd,

And offer poison long already mix'd.

- From Don Juan (link here to The Poetry Foundation)

Cork Assizes in 1689 - Judge Thomas Nugent - Ireland's Judge Jeffreys?

"... I will give a single instance, which may show upon what terms the Protestants stood for their lives: Several gentlemen kept their horses, and armed their servants, in order to defend themselves against the Rapparies or Plunderers, which was called, levying war against the King.

In the County of Cork, one Mr. Brown had been seen in a company of men that were endeavouring to make their escape from the plunderers, but left them and went home; he was however for this brought before Judge (Denis) Daly (Wikipedia here), who acquitted him as innocent:

Afterwards he was carried before Judge (Thomas) Nugent (Wikipedia here) and even he, as bad as he was, at first seemed inclined to acquit him, till he had discoursed with King James, lately come over; and then, by a corrupt Jury, found him guilty, and condemned him to be hanged, drawn and quartered; and the sentence was accordingly executed, no intreaties being able to prevail with King James to pardon him; which made many call to mind the bloody executions in the west of England, and fear Nugent would act over again the infamous part of (Judge George) Jefferies...

... the poor People began to be convinced it was more than a bare threatening, which Sir Robert Parker* and others blabbed out in the coffee house, viz. That they designed to starve one half of the Protestants, and hang the other; and that it would never be well till this was done."

- from Benjamin Bennet, Memorial of the Reformation (London, 1717; Wikipedia here)

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• An account of Mr Browne's execution can be found on page 280 of The History of Bandon, and the principal towns in the West Riding of Cork (online here). The description is identical to the method used by Jeffreys in England during the Bloody Assizes of 1685:

"Notwithstanding that the miserable man's wife and his six little children threw themselves ... at James's feet, and besought his pardon; but this effort of hers was more than unavailing, for, adding insult to injustice, he spurned her. The unfortunate man was first half hanged, then his bowels were torn out, and his body cut into quarters..."

The rest of the chapter includes references to the Monmouth Rebellion and connections with the south west of England, and the general fear that James II's army instilled within the civilian community of west Cork.

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* Parker (1655-91) had accompanied King James II from France to Ireland.

Judge George Jeffreys, Dissenters and "High Treason", Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1683

Judge George Jeffreys was said to have been Oscar Wilde's inspiration for The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890) following a conversation over lunch with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about his novel Micah Clarke (1889) - Jeffreys was a man of youthful handsome looks but a heart of unspeakable evil.

Jeffreys is best known for his barbaric role in the 1685 Bloody Assizes of King James II. A few years ago, historians in Taunton in Somerset installed a series of interpretive panels on the former Debenham's store in the town centre - such is Jefrrey's ongoing notorious reputation that the locals gouged out his eyes and drew a Hitler moustache.

But earlier, in the reign of King Charles II, Jeffreys was already carving out a reputation. Here is an account of his activities in Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1683.

"... But I need say nothing of his conduct; the man and his manners are known, and will be remembered for this generation at least; only one instance I shall relate, it not being taken notice of elsewhere.

As he was making his circuit in the north, calling for vengeance wherever he came, and taking it where he could against the Dissenters, he came to Newcastle upon Tyne at the assizes, 1683. and being informed of a company of young plotters and rebels, as they were resolved to make them, sets himself with his usual zeal to suppress them. The case, in short, was this.

A number of young men in the town of Newcastle (about twenty) met together once a week for mutual assistance and improvement in religion; for which purpose they spent some time in prayer and conference; having subscribed a paper containing rules, for the better ordering such a society, and the work to be done in it, taken out of a book of Mr. Isaac Ambrose's (Wikipedia here).

One of the society, upon what inducement he best knows, turns informer, and having a copy of this dangerous paper, with the names of the subscribers, makes a discovery, and the whole matter was laid before Judge Jefferies at the assizes; by which it appeared to his Lordship, that about twenty young phanaticks met together weekly to pray and talk about religion &c. his Lordship, whose business lay as much with such as these, as with felons &c. resolved to make examples of them. When he was prepared to proceed against them, he ordered the doors of the court to be locked up, and kept locked: till such of the young men as were in court were secured; and, at the same time, dispatched the sheriff with the proper officers to apprehend the rest; the doors being still kept closed, which made no small noise and stir in the town. His Lordship, as his manner was, began to breathe out threatening against the Dissenters; and whereas some of the elder of them, with whom his Lordship would have taken an occasion to have talked, were withdrawn from the town; he said, He would take the Cubs, and that would make the old Foxes appear.

The offenders (some of whom are found in court, and others of them brought in by the sheriff) are presented before his Lordship's tribunal: such as knew his Lordship's character, will easily imagine (and some well remember it) with how much indignation and contempt he would look down upon these young men.

One of them, Mr. Thomas Verner, who had but a mean aspect at besft, (and the work he was taken from made him appear at that time meaner than ordinary) his Lordship was pleased to single out, no question to triumph over his ignorance, and thereby expose all the rest.

Can you read, Sirrah, says he? Yes, my Lord, answers Mr.Verner; reach him the Book, says the Judge; the clerk reaches him his Latin Testament; the young man begins to read, Matth. vii. 1, 2. (it being the first place his Eye light upon, without any design in him, as he affirmed afterwards) Ne judicate, ne judicemini, &c. Construe it, Sirrah, says the Judge; which he did: Judge not, lest ye be judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: Upon which it is said, his Lordship was a little struck, and sat in a pause for some while (and he had occasion, methinks, to pause more upon it in the Tower a few years after.)

The issue of the matter, in short, was this, that the young men, tho' never tried, were sent to jail, where they lay above a year) i.e. from the assizes in 1683, till the first assizes after the death of King Charles when they were called upon and set at liberty, with this reprimand by the Judge, Go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you; adding, that the King's coming to the throne had saved all their lives. 

How they came to escape the trial, which the Judge said he would bring them to, is not very certain ; it is said, the reason was, want of time: However, it was a good Providence to the young men, for had he proceeded against them, it had been much if they had come off with their Lives. The crime charged upon them was no less than high treason, and a jury was provided that would have answered his Lordship's expectations, and followed his directions; one of the jury being asked what they intended to do with the young men; answered, there remained nothing for them (the jury) to do, but to bring them in guilty, for that a paper produced in court, and acknowledged by themselves to be subscribed by them, was by the Lord Chief Justice declared to be high treason; so that if they had been tried, it had been for high treason; and it is known his Lordship seldom saw cause to acquit any such traitors as these..."

- from Benjamin Bennet A Memorial of the Reformation (London, 1717)

1688: "The Liberation of Europe": Allied Forces v the planned Superpower

"In 1686 certain continental powers joined together in a league, known in history as the League of Augsburg, for the purpose of curbing the arrogant power of France. These powers were impartially Protestant and Catholic, including the Emperor of Germany, the King of Spain, William, Prince of Orange, and the Pope.

The latter had but a small army, but possessed a good treasury and great influence. A few years before a French army had marched upon Rome to avenge a slight insult offered to France, and His Holiness was more than anxious to curb the Catholic power that had dared to violate the centre of Catholicity. Hence his alliance with William, Prince of Orange.

King James II, of England, being insecure upon his throne, sought alliance with the French monarch.

When, therefore, the war took place in Ireland, King William fought, aided by the arms, men, and treasures of his allies in the League of Augsburg, and part of his expenses at the Battle of the Boyne was paid for by His Holiness, the Pope. Moreover, when news of King William’s victory reached Rome, a Te Deum was sung in celebration of his victory over the Irish adherents of King James and King Louis."

Who wrote this?

James Connolly, 1913. 

The original meaning of "Revolution" - a turning back, a return to what had once been

Words and their meanings change over time. To our age, the word 'Revolution' means a kind of "burn it all down and start afresh" often with the implied use of force and arms. That's not what was understood in 1700s America and Britain.

When the Founding Fathers wrote of 'revolution' they expressly regarded it as a return, a recovery of the rights as expressed in the 1689 Bill of Rights, and a selection of other earlier documents such as the Magna Carta – rights which successive Parliaments and Monarchs had taken from the people.

“The Revolution (of 1688 in England) was made to preserve our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty ... The very idea of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror.  We wished at the period of the Revolution [1688] and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers.

All the reformations we have hitherto made, have proceeded upon the principle of reference to antiquity ... In the Petition of Right submitted to Charles I, the Parliament says to the King ‘Your subjects have inherited this freedom,’ claiming their franchises not on abstract principles such as ‘the rights of man,’ but as the rights of Englishmen, and as a patrimony derived from their forefathers ... They preferred this positive, recorded, hereditary title ... to that vague speculative idea of ‘natural right.’”

- Edmund Burke (1729-1797) in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

The horrors of King James II's army - Somerset 1685 and Ireland 1689

We were in Somerset again recently, and I visited the Monmouth Rebellion visitor exhibition at Westonzoyland St Mary's Church (link here) and the remote, nearby, Battle of Sedgemoor Memorial which is around a 15 minute walk along stony tractor lanes out onto the Somerset 'Levels'. No grand white marble 'national' masterpiece here, just a simple community monument among straggly trees. We also went to Glastonbury and saw there the brass coloured memorial plaque in an entry to the six unnamed men who were hanged from the sign of the White Hart Inn the day after the battle, on 7 July 1685 - "their bodies left to infect the air"*. 

• At the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685 an estimated 1300 of the 'rebel' men were killed, they were mostly just civilians who had armed themselves to oppose King James II's army. Many of their bodies sank into the marshes and still lie there; artefacts and home-forged weapons are dug up from time to time.

• The show trials of the 'Bloody Assizes' began on 25 August, during which 850 were sentenced to "transportation" and sold as slaves to the Caribbean sugar plantations owned by King James II's friends (his wife got the money) and a further 350 or so hanged, drawn & quartered at 50 locations in the West Country.

• But in between the battle and the trials, for the interim six or seven weeks Lieutenant-General Percy Kirke's regiment, not long back from Tangiers in Morocco, conducted a murderous rampage across the south west**. I've not been able to find the statistics of how many they killed, but I'll be back over again later in the year so will find out more at this new exhibition, 'After Sedgemoor' at the Museum of Somerset.

In The Last Popular Rebellion; the Western Rising of 1685 by Robin Clifton (1984) he says that "Kirk's troops marched from Bridgwater to Taunton spreading fear before them, while the militia reorganized itself to begin a great manhunt over the whole county. The fighting was over, the terror was yet to come". The church records from Westonzoyland recorded 1384 corpses, with yet more unrecovered in cornfields three miles away at Chedzoy; a pit for 174 bodies was dug and filled.

But what of Ireland? Four years later, and desperate to cling to power, in 1689 it seems that King James II authorised similar butchery and brutality here. Lord Galmoy, Piers Butler, had regiments in the west of Ireland, and also a regiment in County Down who were active in the 'Break of Killyleagh' which I have been researching for a while now. This quote is from a 1693 source, and not for the faint of heart:

"The Lord Galmoy was likewise sent with forces to guard the passages between the north of Ireland, and those parts of Munster and Connaught that adjoined to Ulster, to prevent the south and western Protestants from joining, who being a malicious and bloody Papist, first drew blood there, causing two gentlemen who had taken arms for their own defence, under Colonel Sandason (Sanderson), to be hanged on a signpost at Belnahatty (Bellaheady), and their heads being cut off, were kicked about the streets by his soldiers, like foot-balls; 

at Omagh he took two others upon the same pretence, and caused the son first to hang his father, and carry his head on a pole through the streets, crying, ‘This is the head of a traitor;’ and then the young man himself was hanged. 

It was also reported, that some of his dragoons meeting with a clergyman's wife, whose husband had fled northward, several of them, one after another, ravished her, and then ripped up her belly, and exposed her with a dead man upon her.

At Tipperary, an English gentleman seeing some dragoons marching towards his house, shut up his doors (it being late in the evening), as if they were gone to bed; but sixteen of them coming thither, and not being quickly admitted, they forced open his doors, calling him traitor for shutting them against the King's forces; and having pillaged all things of value, they then deflowered his daughter and only child before his face; all sixteen lay with her, and three of them (as was affirmed by his family) after she was actually dead. 

These were the beginnings of the villainies which the Protestants suffered from these execrable wretches."

And also this:

"Galmoy was deaf to any thing could be offered in behalf of the two Prisoners but caused them both to be hanged on sign post, had their heads cut off, which he gave to the Soldiers for foot-balls, who when they had pleased themselves for some time with this barbarous diversion the infamous Galmoy ordered them to be set on the Market-house in Belturbet, to remain a spectacle of his dishonour, and their constancy. It is said that Maguire was so much disgusted at this action that he returned to Crom, threw up his Commission, and would serve K James no longer.

This inhuman treatment of these young Gentlemen more and more demonstrated to the Protestants the necessity of their uniting firmly together, and the inhabitants of Derry and Inniskillen having thus bid defiance to Tyrconnel, encouraged the Protestants of other parts to put upon their defence..."

A Monmouth rebel who survived to tell the tale, and to write others, was John Oldmixon. In his Memoirs of Ireland (1716) he described Galmoy, twice, as an 'infamous wretch':

There was among them an infamous wretch, whom no titles could honour; Pierce Butler, Viscount Galmoy. He had a Regiment of Horse, which was quarter'd on the borders of Ulster...

These are unimaginable war crimes. These accounts from Ireland would once have seemed extreme to me, but when we "zoom out" from merely Ireland and balance these with what is known about what King James II had authorised his army in the West Country of England, and of the barbarities his regiments inflicted upon Scotland even earlier, starting during his years there as Duke of York – and also what James II's cousin Louis XIV was doing to the Huguenots in France – it's entirely plausible. 

That being the case, to reduce the 1688 Revolution which finally overthrew James II to merely being an encounter between two kings and their armies on opposing banks of a river, of generals and military strategy all overlaid with a quasi-religious gloss, is to utterly utterly miss the point.

"Zoom out" even further, leaving the narrowness of Ireland behind, and the Glorious Revolution was the Liberation of Europe.

* from The Last Popular Rebellion; the Western Rising of 1685 by Robin Clifton (1984), p 224.

** In The Western Rising, an Account of Monmouth's Rebellion by Charles Chenevix Trench (1969) a letter from Kirke is quoted in which, one week after the Battle of Sedgemoor, he said that "the rebels lately buried are not sufficiently covered ... press ploughs and men to come to the said place where the rebels are buried that there might be a mound erected on them".

"American vs. French Revolution — What's the Difference?" : Dr. Joseph Loconte

The same noun but totally opposite outcomes. Not all revolutions are the same. Where do your rights come from - your inherent Created humanity, or the power of the state?

"Ireland After the Glorious Revolution" - educational worksheet pack (published by HMSO and PRONI, 1976)

I found this on the shelves again recently, I picked this up years ago. It's a startling example of how knowledge was once mainstream. I doubt there's anything comparable today.

Seeds of Liberty - John Miller - "The Dublin establishment viewed the Ulster Scots with suspicion"

 

Eric Kaufmann on nation, politics, ethnicity, all that type of thing... and Northern Ireland

I've set this YouTube video to play at the appropriate point, at 40min, hopefully it will work. About 20 years ago, when I was Chair of the Ulster-Scots Agency, Professor Kaufman (Wikipedia here) undertook a review of the then-extant University of Ulster's Institute of Ulster-Scots Studies. Not everyone was pleased that such a review was necessary, but peer review is essential. He did a good job.

"The shot heard round the world" - After Lexington: the Provincial Convention of 1775 - "the first independent sovereignty upon this continent"

Almost 250 years ago, on 19 April 1775, the famous battle of Lexington and Concord took place in rural Massachussetts. The official National Parks Service website provides a summary. What of the Ulster-Scots dimension? A man from Londonderry (Ulster) had emigrated to Londonderry (New Hampshire), and became a key figure in the aftermath –

"At the breaking out of the Revolution, (Matthew) Thornton held the post of colonel in the New Hampshire militia, and had also been commissioned a justice of the peace by Benning Wentworth, acting under British authority; but after Lexington and Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775, John Wentworth, then governor, retired from the government of New Hampshire and went to England.

Under these circumstances the colony called a "Provincial Convention" of which Thornton was appointed president. There was no state constitution as yet and no declaration of independence, but there was no other constituted government in the province besides this provincial convention, and I am fond of thinking, and believe it to be historically correct to affirm, that this extemporized but indispensable New Hampshire convention, presided over by a Scotch-Irishman, Ulsterborn, was the first independent sovereignty upon this continent! It certainly assumed the functions of an independent government in the name of the people of the colony."

- from Scotch-Irish in New England by Rev. A. L. Perry, Professor of History and Politics, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.. Taken from The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings and Addresses of the Second Congress at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 29 to June 1, 1890.

• Matthew Thornton entry on the Dictionary of Ulster Biography website

Connecting 1688 and 1776 again

YouTube sent me this – published 4 days ago and has 422,000 views already. It's a pretty good summary of some of the connecting themes. Jump in at 10:27.

"Kings can be tyrants" - the executions of Alice Lisle and of Rev John Hickes, 1685

• ALICE LISLE BEHEADED IN WINCHESTER, 1685
The last woman to be beheaded by the British state was Alice Lisle, on the orders of King James II, and found guilty in a show trial by his Lord Chief Justice, Judge George Jeffreys. She was 71 years old; a plaque in Winchester commemorates where she met her barbaric end - today, it's the Eclipse Inn (pic below from Flickr here)

Jeffreys (biography from 1898 is online here) was notorious, having presided over imprisonments and executions of enemies of the state, such as Algernon Sidney, William Russell and Thomas Armstrong (all executed in 1683, for their reputed involvement in the Rye House plot) and Richard Baxter. But to go after an old woman was a new horror. 

Killed because of her kindness. Her alleged crime was to provide accommodation in her home of Moyles Court to John Hickes and Richard Nelthorpe, two of those who had been supporters of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion of summer 1685; she claimed to have had no knowledge of such involvement, she'd never met Nelthorpe before, and Hickes hadn't yet been put on trial so his involvement was only an allegation. Some histories say that Jeffreys pressured the jury into finding Alice guilty only after they had twice, or maybe three times, found her innocent.

But King James II wanted blood, and Alice Lisle's was to be the shocking, barbaric, first in his series of 'Bloody Assizes' in the south west of England in Autumn 1685. Alice was originally sentenced to burning at the stake, but this was (mercifully?) reduced to a mere public beheading.

(The painting below of Alice being arrested in her home, painted by Edward Matthew Ward in 1857, is in the UK Parliament art collection). Alice Lisle was posthumously pardoned by King William III and Queen Mary II upon their accession to the crown in 1689.

• KINGS CAN BE TYRANTS
Monarchy is not an end in itself, because kings can be tyrants. So said the publishers of the 1560 Geneva Bible, refugees from England. They wrote this advice into the Bible's marginal notes - some say over 400 times. The Bible was used by English non-conformists - and those who sailed on the Mayflower, seeking religious freedom in the New World, had it with them. Kings can be tyrants.

So when Charles II reclaimed the throne in 1661, and through his authoritarian Clarendon Code laws ejected over 2000 non-conformist ministers from the churches in which they preached, doubtless many of them recalled that the Geneva translators had prepared them for such times as this. Kings can be tyrants.

• REV JOHN HICKES
One of them was Rev John Hickes (1633-1685) a former Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He had qualified as a clergyman and took a post at Stoke Damerall near Plymouth, but he was one of those that Charles II 'ejected'. So he then crossed the River Tamar into Cornwall and became one of six ministers to serve the non-conformist community at Saltash - in 1665 they were all reported as being 'notoriously disaffected to ye government of ye Church established in ye Kingdom of England' (online here). 

The church buildings are still there today. Ramping things up, in 1671 Hickes authored a pamphlet entitled A sad narrative of the oppression of many honest people in Devon, &c. He was also involved in illegal outdoor church services, known as conventicles, at nearby Kingsbridge. In 1672 he personally petitioned King Charles II on behalf of the nonconformist population of the 'West Country'. 

Following his arrest at Alice Lisle's home, Hickes was sentenced at Wells on 23 September 1685, and hanged, drawn and quartered with five others at Glastonbury on 6 October 1685. A plaque there reads:

......

On this site stood the medieval White Hart Inn

Somerset 1685

The Pitchfork Rebellion

On Monday June 22nd 1685 James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, having previously landed at Lyme Regis, marched in wet weather from Bridgewater to Glastonbury with his rebel army. They lodged in the two parish churches and camped in the Abbey ruins before continuing to Shepton Mallet the next day.

On Friday July 3rd 1685 Lord Feversham leading the royal troops passed through Glastonbury from Shepton Mallet to camp at Somerton in pursuit of the rebels, then back in Bridgewater.

On Tuesday July 17th, the day after the battle of Sedgemoor, the Wiltshire militia leaving for home marched to Glastonbury where 6 unnamed rebels were hanged from the sign of the White Hart.

The following rebels were later hanged in the town:

Israel Bryant of Glastonbury, Yeoman

John Hicks, Minister of Religion

William Meare of Bridgewater

Richard Pearce

James Pyes of Colyton, Carpenter

......

• Many of John Hickes' surviving letters and his last speech were compiled after his execution, and published by his son-in-law John Tutchin. A selection of them can be found in various later books, such as J.G. Muddiman's The Bloody Assizes, published in 1929 (from page 104 onwards, online here).

• Portrait below from The British Museum and also the New York Public Library.

• Alice Lisle article on the National Archives website here.

PS: Edward Matthew Ward also painted the moment when tyrannical King James II realised his reign was over, entitled King James II Receiving the News of the Landing of William of Orange in 1688, (which he painted in 1851.)

Ulster-Scots 'Commissioner' post now advertised

Here's the press release. To apply for this position you'd have to have some astonishingly optimistic expectation, against almost all other evidences, that 'the system' that runs Northern Ireland will - or has ever wanted to - advance Ulster-Scots in any substantial way. 

For the past 25+ years, many excellent people have worked very hard within the few Ulster-Scots entities, pouring their energies into trying to make those effective - only to find that 'the system' is content for those few entities to exist (under-resourced in every conceivable way), but not for those entities to prosper. 

As the old saying goes, better tae hae nane than a bad yin. I wish the successful applicant well.

"Why did I leave the plough in the fields, and look for a job in the town?"

A recent version of an old standard - one I often played in the car on my daily commute from the country across the city centre, for about 20 years.