proclamation from their pulpits; and obedience to this order was one of the tests of their loyalty. A pamphlet, entitled, “The Scots Episcopal Innocence” (published in 1694), gives the cases of numerous Jacobite clergy tried, and many of them deprived of their parochial livings, by the Privy Council. We find, among other reasons for deprivation, the following one, expressed in several slightly varied terms:— “For not observing the collection for the French and Irish Protestants,” (Case 38) — “For not observing the Proclamation for a voluntary contribution to the French and Irish Protestants,” (Case 139) — “For hindering the reading the Proclamation for a collection for the French and Irish Protestants,” (Case 5) — “For impeding the contribution for the French and Irish Protestants,” (Case 67). The French Protestants were named first, probably because the great sympathy felt for their sufferings would make the collection popular among the Presbyterians of Scotland. On account of the vicinity of Ireland and the actual presence of so many refugees from Ulster, the first practical claim was possessed by the Irish.[1] And accordingly, one disloyal Prelatist (Case 175) denounced the intended recipients as “runnagadoes and rascals who came from Ireland, and pretended persecution, oppression, and force, when they had never lain under any.”
In England also there were Protestant refugees from Ireland who shared with the French in popular sympathy. Dr. Lower of London (whom I have mentioned in a previous section) left £500 to Irish Protestant Refugees after bequeathing £500 to the French. I have quoted largely from Dr. Hickes’ sermon of 1681. There was another sermon on behalf of that year’s collection which was printed, entitled “A Sermon against Persecution, preached March 26, 1682, being the fourth Sunday in Lent (on Gal. iv. 29, part of the epistle for that day), and the time when the Brief for the Persecuted Protestants in France was read in the Parish Church of Shapwicke. And now published to the consideration of violent and headstrong men, as well as to put a stop to false reports. By Sa. Bolde, Vicar of Shapwicke in Dorsetshire. London, printed for A. Churchill, at the Black Swan, near Amen Corner, 1682.” Mr. Bolde in the year 1689 preached a sermon in behalf of the Irish Protestants, with the title, “An Exhortation to Charity (and a word of comfort) to the Irish Protestants. Being a sermon preached at Steeple, in Dorsetshire, upon occasion of the Collection for relief of the Poor Protestants in this kingdom lately fled from Ireland. By Samuel Bolde, Rector there. London, printed for Awnsham Churchill, at the Black Swan, in Amen Corner, 1689.” As the preacher was evidently thinking of the French refugees, as much as of the Irish, I quote some of his sentences:—
Page 22. — “You who suffer for the Protestant Religion— whether in Ireland, France, or anywhere else — take heart, be not discouraged, be not dismayed, but labour to possess your souls with patience.”
Page 33. — “Let us take care that we be not at this time stingy, niggardly, and penurious, lest by our overmuch concern for a small particle we sacrifice all, and betray ourselves into their hands who will prophane the whole, pretending that every part is sacred. Our adversaries’ designs are evidently to deprive us of our religion and of all that we can properly call our own, and to reduce us under that vile — that ignominious — that unsupportable oppression under which tlie Protestants of France have long groaned.”
Page 29. — “As for those Protestants who are come out of Ireland, because they would not renounce the Protestant religion, nor concur with the open enemies of our faith and peace to enslave and ruin us, but have been forced to forsake their own country, by reason of the insolence and cruelty of their wild neighbours, and the violence of a worse and more barbarous Foreign Force, they ought certainly to be very much respected by us. It is our bounden and indispensable duty to contribute all we can to their ease and refreshment. And especially should we be bountiful unto, and encourage to our utmost, such amongst them who are come hither on purpose that they may be put into a capacity to help forward the deliverance of those distressed and besieged people they have left behind them, and who are willing to resist the most outrageous assaults of the common enemies of their religion and country with their last blood, and to prevent the Romish and French Party from making this land as very a field of blood as they have made, or would make, that country.”
Another item of £11,829 appears in the memorandum[2] of refugees’ money paid into the chamber of the City of London, the date being from 10th May 1699 to 16th . February 1701. The collections appointed by the Brief of 1699 appear to have included the Waldenses along with the Huguenots, as we gather from Dr. Wake’s sermon, entitled “The Case of the exiled Vaudois and French Protestants stated, and
- ↑ The Privy Council appointed Deputy-Collectors in various counties to distribute money (as soon as collected and without the necessity of first paying it over to the Collector-General) among the Irish Protestants. The Deputy-Collector at Stranraer was Provost Torburne, who was to be assisted by Sir Charles Hay of Park and Mr. Miller, Minister of Stranraer. — Privy Council Register, Minutes of 7th June and 3d July 1689.
- ↑ Burn’s MSS.
