of war, and that the perpetrators should be punished according to their deserts, without distinction of party or religion.  It was the first article which presented the chief difficulty.  The Irish urged the precedent of Scotland; they asked no more than had been conceded to the Covenanters; they had certainly as just a claim to the free exercise of that worship, which had been the national worship for ages, as the Scots could have, to the exclusive establishment of a form of religion which had not existed during an entire century.  But Charles, in addition to his own scruples, feared to irritate the prejudices of his Protestant subjects.  He knew that many of his own adherents would deem such a concession an act of apostasy; and he conjured the Irish deputies not to solicit that which must prove prejudicial to him, and therefore to themselves:  let them previously enable him to master their common enemies; let them place him in a condition “to make them happy,” and he assured them on the word of a king, that he would not “disappoint their just expectations."[1] They were not, however, to be satisfied

[Footnote 1:  Clarendon, Irish Rebellion, 25.]

with vague promises, which might afterwards be interpreted as it suited the royal convenience; and Charles, to throw the odium of the measure from himself on his Irish counsellors, transferred the negotiation to Dublin, to be continued by the new lord lieutenant, the marquess of Ormond.  That nobleman was at first left to his own discretion.  He was then authorized to promise the non-execution of the penal laws for the present, and their repeal on the restoration of tranquillity; and, lastly, to stipulate for their immediate repeal, if he could not otherwise subdue the obstinacy, or remove the jealousy of the insurgents.  The treaty at Uxbridge had disclosed to the eyes of the monarch the abyss which yawned before him; he saw “that the aim of his adversaries was a total subversion of religion and regal power;” and he commanded Ormond to conclude the peace whatever it might cost, provided it should secure the persons and properties of the Irish Protestants, and the full exercise of the royal authority in the island.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Carte’s Ormond, ii.  App. xii. xiv. xv. xviii. iii. cccxxxi.  He thus states his reasons to the lord lieutenant:—­“It being now manifest that the English rebels have, as far as in them lies, given the command of Ireland to the Scots” (they had made Leslie, earl of Leven, commander-in-chief of all the English as well as Scottish forces in Ireland), “that their aim is the total subversion of religion and regal power, and that nothing less will content them, or purchase peace here; I think myself bound in conscience not to let slip the means of settling that kingdom (if it may be) fully under my obedience, nor lose that assistance which I may hope from my Irish subjects, for such scruples as in a less pressing condition might reasonably be stuck at by me....  If the