involved the destruction of the independence of the chiefs and of the clans. The religious innovations of her reign, and the attempts to force a people to give up its own customs and its own civilisation, even though these involved a state of constant strife which to us appears intolerable, led to constant resistance to her authority. This resistance, in turn, led to confiscation, though on a far smaller scale than is generally believed.
With the Stuarts a new era opens. Confiscation by legal subtleties succeeds to confiscation based on force of arms. The confiscations carried out under James and planned, if not carried out, under his successor took place in a time of profound peace. Elizabeth had not differentiated between Celt and Anglo-Norman. Though much of the confiscated land was given to Englishmen much also was granted to members of the native race or to families long settled in the island. Catholics were not shut out from her grants; indeed of many of the planter families established in her reign it would be difficult to specify the religion. English Catholics often settled in Ireland to enjoy a greater freedom of worship than they had at home, and this settlement was, it would seem, actually encouraged by the government.[1]
But under James all is changed. His confiscations were carried out at the expense of the old Irish; his colonists were almost all British; they were exclusively Protestant. No Catholic and no "mere Irishman" could acquire any lands once
- ↑ Thus the family of Grene, now widespread in Tipperary and the adjoining counties, came over to secure greater religious freedom.
