1817 the Irish prelates remonstrated with the pope, praying for a concordate, which might render the election of their successors domestic and independent: in the year 1818 the pope replied to this remonstrance, ordering them to be at ease this command appears however to have been disregarded, for in the year 1821 the prelates of Leinster, assembled with the clergy of the arch-diocese of Dublin, declared their conscientious uneasiness on the subject. Hist. Mem. vol. 4. p. 479 etc.

LECTURE LVI.

Of the history of Great Britain and Ireland, from the accession of James I. in the year 1603 to that of Charles I. in the year 1625.

James I.

Hampton-Court-conference.

Gunpowder-plot

King declared absolute in Scotland,

and annexation of church-lands

dissolved

Plantation of Ulster

}

1606

1609

THE reign of the first of the princes of the family of the Stuarts is the subject of the present lecture, an important period, distinguished

by various movements in the several territories of the triple monarchy, all preparatory to the grand struggle which shortly succeeded. In this reign the party of the Puritans of England became more distinctly developed, and the English house of commons asserted that importance, which afterwards, urged onward by the puritanical spirit of the time, overthrew the authority of the king, the church, and the nobility. In the same reign an injudicious and violent effort to assimilate the ecclesiastical institutions of Scotland to those of England, provoked a resistance among the people of the former country, which powerfully acted upon the latter, and furnished the grand excitement of its agitations. In this reign also our own country became prepared to take its share in the commotions of England, not only as it was then for the first time in some degree reduced to the order and tranquillity of regular government, but also as a puritanical party of Protestants was formed within it, to assist in controlling the predominant interest of the Roman-Catholics. The balance of the English constitution was at length adjusted at the Revolution, when two contrary vibrations had previously carried it to the opposite extremes of republicanism and of despotic power. The several movements which have been mentioned, were instrumental to this oscillation of the

central and principal government, the two accessory governments of Scotland and Ireland acting as the escapements, which in the machinery of a clock sustain and regulate the motion of the pendulum. Scotland gave the impulse to the puritanical party of England, as Ireland was the support of the contrary party of the Roman-Catholics.

It

The growing importance of the commons in the preceding reigns had been obscured by the aggrandisement of the royal authority, which had been exalted by the decay of the feudal aristocracy; but in a late lecture I have shown, that the popular part of the legislature had acquired a considerable influence in the constitution, and that Elizabeth herself found it expedient to yield to their resistance. seems to me however to have held a principal place among the peculiar advantages, by which the formation of this government has been eminently favoured, that the development of its popular principles was hastened, and as it were forced forward, by exciting causes, instead of being left to its own ordinary and regular process. If the struggle of the commons with the monarchy and the aristocracy had been postponed, until it should have been the result of a consciousness of encreased strength, not stimulated by any temporary excitement, nor assisted by any extrinsic agency, as its powerful

action would not in this case have been in any degree the effect of temporary causes and circumstances, it must have continued until the constitution should have been finally destroyed. The pressure of the multitude would before this time have wholly swept away the artificial institutions of political society; and instead of enjoying the protection of that balanced government, which during more than a century has commanded the admiration of political reasoners, we might now be either experiencing the evils of a general subversion, or struggling with the difficulties of erecting a new system of political order. The constitution of England was indeed for a time overthrown by the violence of the popular part of the government, but this violence was an occasional and unnatural excitement, and when the paroxysm had passed away with the temporary action which had produced it, the nation returned spontaneously to their ancient and established principles of civil policy, instructed by the calamities which they had experienced, and guarded against the possibility of their recurrence.

The first of the temporary and exciting causes, which stimulated into activity the growing principle of freedom, was plainly the introduction of that spirit of religious independence, the origin and development of which have been noticed in the review of the reigns of Mary