Page 234 - Demo

234 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
which would unduly excite Protestant feeling in England.’ In 1661 a Parliament, nearly three-fifths of whose members were Protestant, was convened by Charles in Dublin. The Parliament passed an Act of Settlement which enabled the King to restore a handful of his supporters to their former estates, but in general it confirmed the Cromwellians in the pos- session of their lately-acquired lands.
Despite treating Catholics with some toleration, Charles was too fearful, and too much beholden to the Parliament to insist on having his own way. In typical Stuart fashion, Charles was willing to sacrifice his friends to his enemies.The Irish historian and author Seamus MacManus rendered the reign of Charles 11to a few short lines when he said:
“When, on the death of Cromwell, who had ruled England as a Republic, the English changed from a Republic back to royalty again, and called Charles 11 to the throne, the Irish thought that the Cromwellian wrongs in Ireland would be redressed-because they had fought for Charles’ father, Charles 1. But they were sadly disappointed. Charles 11 did little or nothing to relieve the distress and suffering of the Irish people, or even to relieve them of their painful load of religious suffering.”
Charles 11 is remembered in Ireland for being a weak, ungrateful king, one who was ready and willing to sanction the persecution of Catholics if popular fury demanded it. Such a demand was made, during the panic since known as the “Popish Plot” of 1678, one particular act of weakness, which still keeps his memory to the fore here. The English government believed, or affected to believe, that the “Plot” existed in Ireland also, and as a result demanded no less a victim than Dr. Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh. Arrested and charged at Dundalk, and no evidence being produced against him, the Government brought him in chains to England, where, in London, he was charged with treasonable cor- respondence with France and Rome, and with seditious practices, was tried, found guilty, and executed at Tyburn, 1 July, 1681.
Charles 11 died in 1685 after converting to Catholicism on his deathbed and was suc- ceeded by his brother, James 11. As we have seen, the policy of Charles had been that of following the line of least resistance, his successor, on the other hand, pursued a policy reck- less in the extreme. As James was a Catholic, and England a militantly Protestant country it is no surprise that from the outset of his reign, his Protestant subjects regarded him with suspicion. As one writer noted:
“He began, with an insensate precipitation, and in a notoriously intolerant age, not
ffffff