THE SCOT IN ULSTER
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position in which the three kingdoms must stand if they are to remain at peace with one another, and by the exercise of his own strong, despotic will, swept away their separate Parliaments, and made them in reality one Commonwealth. The Restoration brought back their separate Parliament to Ireland as well as to Scotland; to both they were to prove a curse instead of a blessing. Fortunately for Scotland, the early years of the eighteenth century saw its Parliament ended; the nineteenth was to be begun before Ireland was united with its greater sister kingdoms. With the Restoration ceased the intimate connection which had existed between Scotland and her colony in Ulster; they had been kept together, in very great measure, by their common religion, and now in both the Presbyterian Churches fell on evil days, and had to fight a long fight for very existence. In Ireland the Scottish Church had not to wait long before it received its quietus. Charles II. landed at Dover on the 25th May 1660; his restoration brought back Episcopacy as a matter of course; but if the Irish bishops had been wise men it need not have brought any persecution of the Northern Presbyterians, for it was insanity for the two parties of Protestants to quarrel in face of the enormous mass of opposing Catholics. There was no Archbishop Ussher now to restrain the bishops, so they went to work with a will; and within a year of the Restoration every Presbyterian minister, save six or seven who recanted, were driven from their churches; they...continue reading »
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Page 82
The Scot in Ulster:
Sketch of the History of the Scottish Population of Ulster
by John Harrison
1888