1641.[1] But by the same clause six peers and twenty-seven others of the fifty-six nominees specially mentioned for restoration in the Act of Settlement were now to get only their principal seat and 2000 acres, and this only after reprisals. Amongst the new names were those of Lord Iveagh, and Lord Bourke of Brittas; amongst the nominees of the former Act still unprovided for were the Earl of Westmeath, Lords Ikerrin, Dunboyne, Trimlestown, Upper Ossory and Birmingham. Some of these, perhaps most, ultimately recovered some at least of their lands. But the clause requiring previous reprisals was a fatal bar to others. Finally an Act of William and Mary in 1698 barred all further claims under this clause.
There is something curiously modern about all these proceedings. On the one side we have the credulous optimism of the Irish, their idea that logic and right should override might, their belief in the justice of their cause leading them to ask for the unattainable, their inability to realise the dislike with which they were regarded by all parties in England, their failure to perceive that in the minds of Englishmen the interests of England outweighed all other considerations, their want of union, the selfishness of their great men, in other words a complete absence of political insight and ability.
On the other side there is the grim determination to make no concession without a struggle, the threat in the last resort of the sword, the appeal to race hatred and religious prejudice, the amazing
- ↑ Clause CXLVIII. has 21 names; Clause CCXXVII. addB another.
